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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



%tp fapgrisftt !f a. 

Shell 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HISTORY 



OF 



NEW YORK 



IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE 



BY 






JEANNETTE H? WALWORTH 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 





CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 



CO 



COPYRIGHT BV 

BELFORD, CLARKE cV CO, 
L888 




, & UKNS'P'KitY printers and Binders, Chicago. 






1A 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction to Chapter I., 9 

CHAPTER I. 
Henry Hudson and "The Half Moon," 13 

CHAPTER II. 
Under Dutch Rule, • 2 3 

CHAPTER III. 
The End of Dutch Rule, 34 

CHAPTER IV. 
Dark Days and Dark Deeds, 47 

CHAPTER V. 
Peaceful Days for the Colony, 58 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Folly of England, 6 9 

CHAPTER VII. 

The First Shot 8l 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The War in New York, 93 

CHAPTER IX. 
Burgoyne's Expedition, J 09 



6 Contents. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER X. 
Close of the War for Independence, 124 

CHAPTER XI. 

Peace and Growth 138 

CHAPTER XII. 
J 111: War of 181 2, 149 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Fresh Growth 163 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The I. \ 1 1 War, 173 

( !< 1N1 LUSION, 182 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The "Dolphin," 

Trad-ing with In-dians, 

The Red Man, . 

Show-ing How to Use the Axe 

Fort New Am-ster-dam, 

Pe-ter Min-u-it. 

Com-ing from Church, 

In-dian At-tack, 

Dutch-men at an Inn, 

Stuy-ve-sant at the Gun, 

Lis-pe-nard Street in 1721, 

In-dian Camp, . 

Trap-ping Bea-ver, . 

De-feat of Dies-kau, . 

Ru-ins of Fort Ti-con-de-ro-ga, 

A Fron-tier Post, 

Peaceful Days, . 

Cap-tain Kidd Bur-y-ing Treas-ure, 

A Pa-troon's Man-or House, 

Cry-ing the Stamps, . 

Burn-ing the Stamps, 

A Room in Co-lo ni-al Times, 

In-fant Pa-tri-ots, 

A To-ry Fam-i ly at Break fast, 

The Warn-ing, . 

Min-ute Men, 

I-saac Sears Ad-dress-ing the Peo-ple, 

Ru ins of Fort at Crown Point, 

The Pal-i-sades, on the Hud-son, 

George Wash-ing-ton, 

The Wash-ing-ton Elm, 

Mont-gom-er-y's Mon u-ment, 

Howe> Head-quar-ters, . 

A Red-Coat Stand-ing on Guard, 

Wash-ing-ton's Head-quar-ters, 



PAGE 
II 
16 
18 
20 

27 



36 

39 
4i 

44 
46 

5o 
53 
55 
62 

64 
67 
70 

72 

75 
77 
83 
87 
88 
89 
90 
92 
96 
97 

99 

ior 

'03 
105 



Bat-tie of Har-lem Heights, 

Fort Lee 

Some of St.-Leg-er's In-dian Troops, 

Schuy-ler's Re-treat, 

Scene on Lake George, 

Bur-goyne's Sur-ren-der, 

War Dance, 

Jo-seph Brandt, 

Lurk-ing Red Men, . 

Sto-ny Point, on the Hud-son, 

The Hud-son Riv-er from West Point, 

Cap-ture of An-dre, .... 

Ar-nold's Es-cape to the " Vult-ure." 

Wash-ing-ton's Head-quar-ters at New 

burgh, ...... 

The E-vac-u-a-tion, . 

In-au-gu-ra-tion of Wash-ii 

On the Mo-hawk, 

Ful-ton's Steam-boat. 

Brook-lyn in 1810, 

Re-cruit-ing, 

Car-ry-ing Food to the Troops, 

Gen-er-al Brown's Scouts Near-ing Fort 

E-rie, ...... 

For-ti-fy-ing, ..... 

On the Ca-nal, ..... 

Ful ton Show-ing his Mod-el, . 
Christ mas Eve in the Old-en Times, 
Por-trait of Van Bu-ren, . 
Por-trait of Lin-coln, 

Off for the War 

The Ri-ot 

Por-trait of Pres-i-dent Cleve-land, 
Scene in the Ad-i-ron-dacks, . 



io6 
[08 
10 
12 
14 
17 
•9 
21 



[29 

;i 

i33 

'35 
137 
[40 
142 
[44 
r 4 8 
54 
56 

'59 
[61 

[64 
166 
[68 

170 
'75 
'77 
181 

'83 
[85 



NEW YORK. 



INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER I. 

Two hun-dred and six-ty-five years a-go there 
was no New York State, no New York Ci-ty, no 
net-work of rail-roads spread like i-ron cob-webs all 
o-ver the land, no steam-boats puff-ing and snort- 
ing all a-bout her bays and streams and lakes, no 
bridg-es to ex-cite the won-der of the world, no 
schools nor church-es, — none of the things which the 
chil-dren who read this book have been used to see 
and hear a-bout all their lives. 

There was on-ly a rock-y is-land, ly-ing be-tween 
two salt riv-ers and a bay, to be seen by the first 
white men, — with plen-ty of trees and some dark- 
skinned sav-ag-es, who lived in huts called wig-wams 
and did not lay much stress on the cut of coats, as 
they wore none at all. 

These sav-ag-es had small fields of to-bac-co and 



io New York. 

corn. They got a-bout in bark ca-noes, which they 
han-dled with great skill. They lived by hunt-ing 
and fish-ing and fight-ing. They were not good to 
the wo-meri of their race. No sav-age ev-er is good 
to a thing weak-er than him-self. But, as this ac- 
count of the first days of the " Em-pire State" (as 
New York is called now) is just to coax you in-to 
read-ing big-ger and bet-ter and full-er books on the 
same sub-ject, I can-not stop to say more a-bout the 
[n-dians who had full pos-ses-sion of the coun-try 
be-fore the white men took it from them. 

In writ-ing a his-to-ry of New York State for 
young peo-ple, the chief trou-ble lies in find-ing out 
what not to saw its sto-ry is such a full and rich 
one from its ear-h-est clays up to the pres-ent. 

In a small book like this one, you can on-ly get 
a slight glimpse of what has been done in and for a 
State which was w ith-out towns, roads, ships — with- 
out ev-er-y-thing that civ-il-ized men need — at the 
time of its set-tle-ment by 1 len-ry Hud-son's men. 

While the ac-tu-al set-tle-ment of the State may 
prop-er-ly be dat-ed from his com-ing, you must 
know that an I-tal-ian, by name Ver-ra-za-no, who 
was in the ser-vice of Fran-cis I. of France, made a 
voy-age in 1524, in a ship called the "Dol-phin," 
and wrote home of the mouth of a "great riv-er," 
be-yond which he found men who were "dressed m 



Introduction. 



1 1 



the feath-ers of birds," and who met the men of the 
" Doi-phin" with "great de-light." 

The let-ter goes on to say that they took small 
boats and went up this stream, when all of a sud- 




THE "DOL-PHIN." 



den, "as is wont to hap-pen to nav-i-ga-tors, con- 
trary winds forced us to go back to the ship, with- 
out see-ing an-y-thing more of the land which was so 
pleas-ant to our eyes." 



12 New York. 

Some writ-ers put the num-ber of these In-dians 
at 180,000 east of the Miss-is-sip-pi Riv-er in 1650. 
Per-haps of these New York State had a-bout 30,000 
or 40,000, but few as they were in num-ber, they 
vast-ly out-num-bered the hand-ful of white men 
who be-gan the tre-men-dous task of re-deem-ing this 
land from sav-age-ry. 

Such a task could not be car-ned on by a few 
scat-tered groups of set-tiers, each act-ing for it-self; 
there-fore the Trad-ing Com-pan-ies, of which you 
will hear a good deal in the com-ing pag-es, held 
au-thor-i-ty o-ver the Col-o-ny of Man-hat-tan for a 
good ma-ny years. 

All this I will try to make plain to you as we go 
on to-geth-er. 



Henry Hudson and " The Half Moon." 



CHAPTER I. 

HENRY HUDSON AND ''THE HALF MOON." 

Late in the year 1609 a Dutch ship, by name 
"The Half Moon," found her way in-to the bay of 
New York, as it is now known, with a crew of 
white men on board, the first that had ev-er been 
seen in this part of the New World. 

The name of the man in charge of that ship is a 
name well known to an-y child old e-nough to read 
this book. It was Hen-ry Hud-son. 

Hen-ry Hucl-son was an Eng-lish-man, who had 
twice tried to find his way to Ca-thay for his own 
king, but had not done so ; on the strength of which, 
in a pet, no doubt, — for he was a proud man, and 
sneers stung him to the quick, — he left his home to 
make a third tri-al. This time, it was with the Dutch 
flag at his mast's head and Dutch gold in his purse. 

Bold Hen-ry Hud-son had been sent out in 
"The Half Moon" by some shrewd rich men, who 
thought much more of gold than of glo-ry. The 
Dutch East In-dia Com-pa-ny sent him out to look 
for a north-east or north-west pas-sage to Chi-na ; but 
the ice drove him to-wards the South and sent him 



1 4 New York. 

up the bay of New York, to make his own name 
fa-mous for all time, and to find more wealth for the 
Dutch than they had ev-er hoped to see. 

In the long run, the ac-ci-dent which made 
I Ien-ry Hud-son change his course was a good thing 
for the Dutch, and for the Red men, whom he found 
in the State. The Dutch gave the name New 
Neth-er-lands to the State, and it went by that name 
up to the time when Charles II. of Eng-land gave it 
to his broth-er, the Duke of York. 

But I am not go-ing to tell you a-bout the Duke 
of York just yet. We want first to know the fate of 
that small crew of white men, who found them-selves 
in a strange land, with strange Red men in it, who 
could not make out a word they spoke to them. 

When "The Half Moon," with those hold Dutch 
men on board, made her first trip from San-dy I look 
to the spot where Al-ba-ny now stands, it took her 
e-lev-en daws. The whole face of the land was wild 
and strange then. 

East-man tells us that they made their first stop 
at Con-ey Is-land, where the}- found the soil of 
white sand (as we do now), with vast plains of plum 
trees, load-ed with fruit and grape vines of all sorts 
(as we do not now). 

While the ship lay close to shore the Red men 
came in crowds to look at the white men. Each, no 



Henry Hudson and "The Half Moon." 15 

doubt, with the wish, to see with his own eyes what 
sort of strange be-ing the oth-er was. 

The In-dians wore loose deer skins, and brought 
with them such things as they thought might please 
the " pale fac-es ;" such as sweet dried fruits, dried 
fish, grapes, and some-bod-y adds "baked dog" to 
the bill of fare of-fered the men from "The Half 
Moon." 

When the small boat was sent out to sound the 
bay, the shores swarmed with these dark-skinned 
men and their squaws, as they call their wives. 
The State was full of them. 

Hud-son soon found out that the bay was on-ly 
the door to vast and rich lands which lay to the 
north of it, and he spent one month in the task of 
spy-ing out the land on both sides of the stream 
which now bears his name. 

The crew went on shore, where they found a 
"good land with grass and flow-ers and grand trees, 
from which came sweet smells." 

The first wish of the In-dians was to make 
friends of these white men. The white men, with 
their fire-arms and their ship with its white wings, 
were as strange to the Red men, as the Red men, 
with their slight dress of skins, their bright plumes 
and bows and ar-rows, were to the white men. 

They had a good deal to do with each oth-er. 




fRAD-ING WITH IX-D1 VNS 



Henry Hudson and "The Half Moon!' 17 

The white men came and went on board their ship 
in peace. Hud-son bore in mind the fact that trade 
was the thing he had been sent out to look af-ter, 
and he made it a rule to deal fair-ly and hon-est-ly 
by the sim-ple na-tives, who brought their rich furs 
to trade in ex-change for glass beads and oth-er 
cheap things. 

How lono- these Red men had been in the State 
when Hud-son came o-ver the sea, no one can say. 
No doubt for a long, long time, To be sure they 
had not done much for it nor with it. They did 

J 

not, them-selves, know how vast its wealth was. 
To them its woods were no more than grounds in 
which to hunt the wild beasts, whose flesh gave 
them food, and whose skins gave them dress. Its 
streams were good for the sal-mon, the trout, and 
the stur-geon that filled them. 

It was not un-til the white men came from so far 
a-way to bring them trink-ets for furs, that they 
be-gan to wage such fierce war on the er-mine, 
the beav-er, the ot-ter, and oth-er creat-ures of the 
fur-bear-in£ sort. 

The tribes which Hud-son found a-long the 
banks of the riv-er were the Five Na-tions, or Ir-o- 
quois, and the Del-a-wares. They were, as all the 
Red men are, tall, straight, and well made. Their 
skins were red ; their eyes were small, black, and 



i8 



New York. 



keen; their hair long, black, and coarse. They 
were strong of frame, and the out-door lives they led 
kept them free from sick-ness. The Red men had 




THE RED MAN. 



no use for drugs. A few herbs of the field were all 
they made use of to ease a pain or cure an ill. 



Henry Hudson and "The Half Moon." 19 

Their minds were bright, though, of course, 
they had no schools nor books as you have. They 
were not quick in wrath, but were proud and brave, 
and had their own views as to w T hat was due them 
from the new-com-ers. They were child-like in their 
love of show in dress, and the glit-ter of a brass 
buck-le, or of a string of glass beads, far out-weighed 
the cost of the rich furs they brought to the white 
tracl-ers. 

We do not like to read that when "The Half 
Moon" was on her way down the Hud-son, for 
some cause not told, this smooth state of things 
came to a rude end. A small boat, on its way back 
to the ship, was set up-on by two ca-noes full of In- 
dians, and John Col-man was shot to death. 

This was the first white man to die here. He 
was bur-ieel some-where on San-dy Hook. 

As soon as the news of Hen-ry Hud-son's rich 
find was spread in Hol-land, the Dutch sent out a 
new ship's crew to trade for furs. The In-dians 
were glad to see them, and brought their furs 
to trade for things whose use they had to be 
taught. 

The hoes, ax-es, and socks- which the white men 
gave them, were put to queer us-es. They hung the 
hoes and ax-es a-bout their necks, and took the socks 
for to-bac-co bags. When their white friends came 



20 



New York. 



a-gain, and made helves for the ax-es and han-dles 
lor the hoes, they were glad e-nough to ease their 
necks of them ; hut the socks they nev-er came to 
think quite so well of. 

Man-hat-tan Is-land, the spot on which the great 

_ ci-tv of New York now 
stands, was bought by 
the Dutch, from the In- 
dians, for six-ty guild- 
ers, a-bout twen-ty-four 
dol-lars. It is set down 
to the cred-it of the 
Dutch, that they paid 
for it at all. All' of the 
white men who came 
o-ver to the New \\ orld 
did not deal so fair-ly 
by the na-tives. 

I hose were won- 
der-ful times, when men 
seemed to stum-ble in 
the way of get-ting rich 
and fa-mous with-out 
plan-nine;" it all out a- 
head. Not that they were not won-der-ful men, too. 
For it took a vast deal of pluck for men to sail 
a-cross the storm-y seas in such ships as the)' had 




sh< >\\ -ing now ro 1-1 I HI \xi . 



Henry Hudson and "The Half Moon!' 2r 

then, to ex-plore and set-tie the land Co-lum-bus 
first made known to the world. 

While Hud-son was mak-ing his way in the 
south-ern part of the State, the French were do-ing 
the same thing, in a small-er way, in the north-ern 
part. 

Sam-u-el de Chanvplain, whose name is still 
borne by a lake, which, if you will take your maps, 
you will find in the north-east cor-ner of the State, 
was a good man, but he was a French-man, and a 
man of war, who had been brought up to think that 
the best way to right a wrong was to fight a-bout it. 

He did not come as the Pil-grims came to Plym- 
outh, lat-er on, to be free to wor-ship God in their 
own way ; nor as the Dutch came, to trade peace- 
a-bly for furs. He came dream-ing of the time 
when there should be a new French kin^-dom 
plant-ed on this soil, and the Pope should hold sway 
o-ver it. His work lay in Can-a-da, and his be-ing 
mixed up with the ear-ly days of New York was a 
sort of ac-ci-dent ; but as these first pag-es are meant 
to ?give you a clear i-de-a of how and when the ver-y 
first steps were tak-en to bring this great State un-der 
the white man's rule, Cham-plain must have a few 
words, too. 

The tribes which he found in the north were 
the Al-gon-quins and the Hu-rons. No doubt he 



22 New York. 

would have been glad to have made good Cath-o-lics 
of all the Red men. Dur-ing the long, hard win-ter 
he fed them, and the}- were rea-dy to lay down their 
lives for him. 

The Al-gon-quins and the Hu-rons hat-ed and 
feared the Ir-o-quois, who dwelt in the south-ern and 
east-ern part oi the State. 

The Ir-o-quois was the name giv-en to five 
na-tions: the Mo-hawks (after whom the rich Mo- 
hawk Val-ley is named), the O-nei-das, the O-non- 
da-gas, the Ca-yu-gas, and the Sen-e-cas. A strong 
hand they formed. It was in-to the feud oi these 
Ir-o-quois a-gainst the Hu-rons that Cham-plain al- 
lowed him-seli to he drawn. 

Em-bark-ing with his two tribes in ca-noes on 
Lake Cham-plain, he set forth to meet the Ir-o-quois 
and to fight them. They met on the wa-ter just 
be-fore reach-ing the out-let in-to Lake George, and 
go-ing on shore near Ti-con-de-ro-ga, they met in 
blood-y con-tact. 

The Ir-o-quois had nev-er be-fore seen the ef-fect 
of fire-arms. They were filled with fear at the sight 
and sound, and fell an ea-sy prey to their foes, led 
by the French. 

NO <'()od can be traced back to this first show oi 
en-mi-ty be-tween the In-dians and the new set-tiers. 
If Cham-plain had gone on-ly two days' trav-el south- 



I iider Dutch Rule. 23 

ward from that bat-tie-field he would have found 
the In-dians flock-ing a-found "The Half Moon" in 
their ca-noes, meet-ing kmd-ness with kind-ness, and 
pre-par-ing the way for the Dutch to be-gin a long 
pe-ri-od of peace-ful com-merce with them. As it 
was, he gained the un-dy-ing hate of a might-y tribe, 
but failed to gain an-y-thing for France. 

Thus you will see that Eng-land, who came not 
so ma-ny years lat-er on to own the en-tire State, 
had no hand in find-ing it, or in plant-ing its first 
col-o-nies. The Dutch and the French must share 
the glo-ry of find-ing it be-tween them. 

To the Dutch a-lone was left the task of mak-ing 
it fit for white men and wo-men to live in. How 
they went to work to do this you shall next hear. 



CHAPTER II. 

UNDER DUTCH RULE. 

You will come a-cross the words "West In-dia 
Trad-ing Com-pa-ny" so of-ten in this chap-ter that 
you had best start out with a clear l-de-a of what 
they mean. Hen-ry Flud-son was in the ser-vice of 
the East In-dia Com-pa-ny when he found the 
Hud-son Riv-er, but the West In-dia Trad-ing 



24 New York. 

Com-pa-ny was formed for the pur-pose of trad-ing 
for furs, and as it was a strong and rich com-pa-ny, 
the gov-ern-ment of Hol-land gave it the en-tire 
con-trol of all the lands claimed by the Dutch in the 
New World. 

You now know that New Neth-er-lands, as New 
\ ork was called for the first fif-tv years af-ter Hud- 
son found it, was set-tied by the Dutch. 

It had in all four Dutch Gov-er-nors, who ruled 
it from 1626 to 1664. And a ver-y good sort of 
rule it was, on the whole, al-though there were wars 
with the Red men which need not have been, and 
some fam-i-ly quar-rels a-mong them-selves, which 
did not help things for an-y-bod-y. 

1 he names of those four Dutch rubers, or, as 
the Trad-ing Com-pa-ny called them, " Di-rect-ors," 
were Pe-ter Min-u-it, Wou-ter Wan Twill-er, Wil- 
liam kieft, and Pe-ter Stuy-ve-sant, whose name is 
still to be found in parks, streets, plac-es, and halls 
in New York Ci-ty, and whose one-ieg-gecl stat-ue is 
a ver-y fa-mil-iar sight there. 

Hud-son, the man who first saw the great riv-er, 
did not reap an-v good from it. He died while 
ex-plor-ing Hud-son's Bay. His men left him; he 
was fro-zen to death, and oth-ers got the ben-e-fit of 
his brave ef-forts. 

In 1623 two forts were built in the State — Fort 



Under Dutch Rule. 



21 



New Am-ster-dam, on the south-ern point of Man- 
hat-tan Is-land, and Fort Or-ange, on the west bank 
of the Hud-son Riv-er. These two forts grew to be 
the ci-ties of New York and of Al-ba-ny, now the 
cap-i-tal of the State. 




Jbr/ /TZzww xSfrnsterdcan. cp dfJ\foritu%tasiS, 




FORT NEW AM-STER-DAM. 



Un-like the Eng-hsh, who were at that time 
mak-ing homes in oth-er parts of the New World, 
the set-tiers of New Neth-er-lands de-pend-ed on 
trade rath-er than on farm-ing, though they did sow 
some wheat, rye, oats, bar-ley, and beans on patch-es 



26 -A cm } (:r ^- 

of ground they found cleared, and reaped rich har- 
vests from it. But furs be-ing the main ob-ject with 
them, caused them to spread in-land a-long the hanks 
of the Hud-son in-stead of fol-low-ing the sea-shore, 
as oth-er set-tiers did. Small ham-lets soon sprung 
up on Long Is-land too. 

New York State was set-tied in an odd sort oi 
a way- not by men who came o-ver, each for him- 
self, for bet-ter or for worse. The Trad-ing Com- 
pa-ny sold the land in large lots to men who were 
called "pa-troons." These pa-troons sent o-ver fam- 
i-lies in large num-hers, and placed them as ten-ants 
on the lands they got from the Com-pa-ny. A pa- 
troon who sent out fif-ty set-tiers might take as much 
land as he could use. A ver-y good thing lor the 
pa-troons, but not quite so good for the set-tiers. 

The pa-troons were to pay no tax-es for ten years 
and the set-tiers were to be their serfs. The sole 
right to trade in furs was kept by the pa-troon. 
The wives oi the sells were not to spin yarn, weave 
cloth, or make hats from the furs which were all 
claimed by the pa-troons and the Com-pa-ny. 

Lat-er on a new plan was a-dopt-ed. Ev-er-y 
one who went o-ver to the new State with five oth-er 
em-i-grants was giv-en two hun-dred a-cres of land, 
and was not to be un-der the con-trol of the pa- 
troons. You can eas-i-ly see how these ex-per-i-ments 



Under Dutch Rule. 



27 



would bring on jeal-ous-y and con-fu-sion. No one 
but the pa-troons them-selves thought well of that 
plan, and the sys-tem died out en-tire-ly be-fore the 










State passed in-to the 

hands of the Eng-lish. 

For some years the 

growth of the State 

was slow; but the kind 

j way in which the 

Dutch rubers met the 

J na-tives caused its 

growth to be sure. 

The first of these 
Dutch " Di-rect-ors" was Pe-ter Mm-u-it, who lived 
in grand state, with three ne-gro slaves to wait on 



PE-TER MIN-U-IT, 



28 



New York 



him. He came over in 1626, just six-teen years 
aft-er the State was first known to the Old \\ orld. 
It was he who bought the Is-land oi Man-hat-tan 
from the lied men for twen-ty-four dol-lars. I he 
trade may have been a sharp one on the part of the 

Dutch, but it did good by 
show-ing the Red men 
that their lands were not 
to be tak-en from them by 
force. 

Un-der Dutch sway 
■ God and the school were 
J8jt\ not lost sight of. In Min- 
u-it's time we read a-bout 
the school-mas-ter and the 
" con-sol-er of the sick." 
On Sun-days the school- 
mas-ter read texts from 
the Bi-ble and the creed 
to an-v who would come 
to hear him. The loft 
of a horse-mill is the 
first church we hear of in New Am-ster-dam, 
which was the Dutch name for the Ci-ty of New 
York. 

Fort Or-ange (now Al-ba-ny) met with a grave 
set-back in its first strug-gling days. It grew out of 




COM-1NG 1 R< 'M i'MURCH. 



Under Dutch Rule. 29 

one of the few wrongs the Red men met with at the 
hands of the Dutch. It was this way: 

The whole face of the land was crowd-ed by 
In-dian tribes who hat-ed each oth-er. The Mo-hi- 
cans, from the east side of the Hud-son, crossed 
o-ver to fight the Mo-hawks, and begged the Dutch 
com-mand-er of Fort Or-ange to lend them his aid. 
He fool-ish-ly did so, which so en-raged the Mo- 
hawks, who had al-ways been on the best terms with 
the white men, that they did not wait for the at-tack, 
but fell on the white men, and slew that un-wise 
com-man-der and three of his men. The rest fled. 

This spread such ter-ror through Fort Or-ange 
that the wo-men and chil-dren were all sent to Man- 
hat-tan, and men a-lone were left in charge of the 
fort. For two years, fear of the In-dians kept white 
set-tiers from re-turn-ino- there. 

A man by the name of " Krol," one of the "con- 
sol-ers of the sick," had been left in charge of the 
fort with on-ly six-teen men. He was a shrewd 
man, and sent out such bright re-ports of the rich 
soil and the fine cli-mate and the chanc-es for trade, 
that one of the chief men of the bio- Trad-ing Com- 
pa-ny o-ver there in Hol-land, a man who had grown 
rich by pol-ish-ing pearls and dia-monds, sent out 
mon-ey to buy a huge tract of land on the west side 
of the Hud-son from the Red men. 



30 New York. 

His name was Van Rens-se-laer ; and when he 
sent out his pa-troons, he sent them well sup-plied 
with cat-tie and tools, which, I fan-cy, was the be- 
gin-ning of the rich farms lor which the Mo-hawk 
\ al-ley has al-ways been fa-mous. Fort Or-ange 
it-sell still he-longed to the Com-pa-ny, but af-ter the 
\ an Rens-se-laer pur-chase it once more be-came a 
place of im-por-tanqe, and soon came to n-val Man- 
hat-tan. 

As the coun-try throve and grew rich, men he- 
came rest-less. The pa-troons grew strong and rich, 
too, and thought they ought to car-ry on the fur 
trade in their own names. The Com-pa-ny thought 
the fur trade ought to he kept in their hands. Per- 
haps Pe-ter Min-u-it sid-ed with the pa-troons, I 
don't know; but just then he was re-called, and 
\\ ou-ter \ an Twill-er, who had been a clerk for the 
Com-pa-ny, was sent out to take his place. 

I will-ers wife was a niece of the rich pa-troon 
Van Rens-se-laer; and the Dutch Gov-er-nor took 
much in-ter-est in his un-cle's vast farms. Un-der 
his rule, much was done to im-prove the state of 
af-fairs in the Col-o-ny, and the white men kept on 
the best of terms with the Red men. 

\\ ou-ter \ an Twill-er had great hopes and plans 
for Man-hat-tan. In his time, a plain wood-en 
church took the place of the loft in the horse-mill, 



Under Dutch Rule. 31 

and oth-er build-ings were put up. He was a vain 
man, fond of big words and fine clothes ; but he 
kept a sharp eye on the rights of the Com-pa-ny. 
Some laughed at him, some hat-ed him. He built 
him-self a house of bricks brought all the way from 
Hol-land. He was re-called by the Com-pa-ny, who 
thought he was try-ing to take too much pow-er in-to 
his own hands. He gave place to the third Dutch 
" Di-rect-or," Wil-ham Kieft. 

Kieft took charge in 1637. A good ma-ny 
chang-es were made dur-ing his rule, and he made 
some great mis-takes in deal-ing with the Red men. 
It was a storm-y time. The Com-pa-ny were forced 
to yield up some of their pow-er. 

This re-sult-ed in good, for set-tiers came from 
Vir-gin-ia, from New Eng-land, and from Con-nec- 
ti-cut as soon as it was known that they could have 
as much land as they could till, by pay-ing a tenth 
of all they made as "quit-rent." 

An-tho-ny Jan-sen, a French Hu-gue-not, took a 
tract of land where Brook-lyn now stands. All 
these new-com-ers a-greed to o-bey the Dutch Di- 
rect-or, and to fight with him a-gainst all en-e-mies 
of the Col-o-ny. 

Kiefts treat-ment of the In-dians is the blot on 
his name, and he got things in-to a sad snarl. All 
the Dutch rul-ers who came be-fore him, had trad-ed 



22 New York. 

with them as men who had rights of their own. 
Kieft de-man<l-ed kk trib-ute" from them. That is, he 
claimed a share of all the maize they grew, and all 
the fur they found. lie said that the Dutch had 
pro-tect-ed them from their en-e-mies, and they ought 
to he paid for it. On the other hand, the In-dians 
said that they had not on-ly tak-en care of them- 
selves, hut had paid for ev-er-y thing they got from 
the Dutch, and had brought them food lor two win- 
ters, and riv-en them aid in oth-er ways. 

By this time the In-dians had grown quite used 
to the white men. They went to the hous-es of the 
Dutch, and some had hired out as help to the set- 
tlers. Kieft, al-so, tried to put an end to the sale ot 
fire-arms to the na-tives, which they had learned to 
use. and grown quite proud of. All this brought 
a-bout a bad state of things in the Col-o-ny. 

I [e sent first to col-lect trib-ute from the Rar-i-tan 
In-dians. They would not pay it, on the strength 
of which some of their men were killed, and their 
crops laid waste. The Rar-i-tans took quick re-venge 
lor this cru-el treat-ment, and from this grew a war 
that last-ed two years. 

In that fight 1600 Red men were slain; the 
white men could not till the soil, so the col-o-nists 
were threat-ened with fam-ine, and the small out-ly- 
ing towns were laid in ru-ins. Long be-fore the end 



Under Dutch Rule. 



came, Kieft saw what an aw-ful mis-take he had 
made, and tried to bring a-bout a peace. Peace was 
made in 1645. But it is a far eas-i-er thing to get 
in-to a fight than to get out of one, as he found to his 




IN-DIAN AT-TACK. 



cost. At the close of this war, Man-hat-tan could 
count but 100 men be-side trad-ers. The Com-pa-ny 
re-moved Kieft, and the Col-o-ny be-gan to thrive 
once more. 



->4 New York. 

Pe-ter Stuy-ve-sant came next, and he met with 
a warm wel-come. lie is a most con-spic-u-ous fig, 
uiv in the his-to-ry of those times. He was full of 
fight, as all those fierce old Dutch-men were, but he 
tried to make a good use of his pow-er. He kept 
him-self in hot wa-ter for the sake of the Com-pa-ny 
he served. 

A-bout this time the Eng-lish set-tiers on Long 
Is-land gave signs that they did not care to be un-der 
Dutch rule an-y lon-ger, and sent a plea to Hart-lord 
to be tak-en un-der the wing of the Eng-lish. Dis- 
putes be-tween them and Di-rect-or Stuy-ve-sant 
grew hot, and oth-er Eng-lish set-tiers were drawn 
in-to it, but the close of Dutch rule, un-der Stuy-ve- 
sant is too nn-por-tant a fact to be told in a lew- 
words at the end of a chap-ten 



CHAPTER III. 

Till' END OV DITCH RULE. 

No one could blame Eng-land for want-ing to 
claim the rich lands which lay right be-tween the 
North-ern and South-ern Col-o-nies al-read-y plant-ed 
by the Eng-lish. 

New York had the best har-bor on the coast and 



The End of Dutch Rule. 35 

the most a-bun-dant wa-ter cours-es. Nowhere else 
could such a high-way for trade with the Red men 
for furs be found Years be-fore this the In-dians 
had bur-ied a hatch-et with the Dutch un-der a big 
tree at Al-ba-ny. That was their way of sign-ing a 
treat-y of peace ; so ev-er-y-thing point-ed to a smooth 
and eas-y reign for the Duke of York in his new 
col-o-nies. The Dutch had smoothed the way for 
him. 

James, the Duke of York, said he would like to 
have this fine piece of prop-er-ty, and his broth-er, 
Charles II. of Eng-land, gave it to him. Not that 
they had an-y right to treat the Dutch so, but kings 
and queens have a way of mis-tak-ing might for 
right. The claim they put up was, that one hun- 
dred years be-fore Hud-son had gone up the riv-er 
in "The Half Moon," a man by the name of Cab-ot 
had seen and claimed this part of the New \\ orld 
for Eng-land. But the Dutch had spent fif-ty qui-et 
years on these shores be-fore that claim was set up ; 
and, of course, it did not please them to think of 
'hav-ing to give up their farms and their homes and 
their trad-ing posts at the com-mand of a strange 
king. 

Those old Dutch set-tiers had come to feel ver-y 
in-de-pen-dent of kings in their new homes. The 
West In-dia Trad-ing Com-pa-ny on-ly want-ed to 



New York, 



make mon-ey out of them, and they stood in no awe 
n! its Di-rect-ors, who were no bet-ter, and not so 
brave, some-times, as they them-selves. 

They had brought here with them the man-ners, 




DUTCH-MEN AT AN INN. 



the style of dress, and the home hab-its which they 
liked best. No one cared much a-bout the chang-es 
of fash-ion. Just so — they could put on as much 



The End of Dutch Rule, ^y 

cloth-ing as this cold cli-mate called for, they were 
hap-py, if they did look queer. 

They had their quaint lit-tle inns, where they 
went to drink beer and to smoke their pipes filled 
with the A-mer-i-can weed to-bac-co, which they 
learned to like ver-y soon. They had their mar-ket 
days and their church fes-ti-vals. These last were 
not ex-act-ly like what we call church fes-ti-vals now. 
They had some queer cus-toms which hurt no one. 
The New Year was a great day with them for calls. 
In short, things were in a nice, snug fix, when these 
slow Dutch set-tiers were thrown in-to a state of 
dis-may and wrath by the Duke of York's bold 
claim. 

It was in the time of stout Pe-ter Stuy-ve-sant 
that a fleet of four ships, with a force of four hun- 
dred and •fif-ty armed men on board, came in sight 
of New Am-ster-clam. 

The cap-tain of this fleet sent a let-ter to the fort 
with the mild re-quest that it should be giv-en up to 
the Eng-lish at once. The fleet was un-cler the 
con-trol of a Col-o-nel Nic-olls, who, as far as we can 
learn, was not a bad man, but was read-y and will-ing 
to soft-en this hard blow to the Dutch if he could in 
an-y way. 

The town was not in trim to fight. The Com- 
pa-ny had not spent much of its mon-ey on the 



$8 New York. 

Col-o-ny. In fact, they had looked to it to make 
mon-ey for them and to take care of it-self at the 
same time. 

The tort had on-ly twen-ty gains and a small 
sup-ply of pow-der, but Di-rect-or Pe-ter was for 
try-ins to hold it a-gainst the six-ty-two can-non on 
the ships. lie said he would rath-er die than give 
up the fort, and, no doubt, he meant just what he 
said. But when the preach-er came to him and 
plead with him not to be the first to shed blood, and 
all the men cried out that there was no help for it, 
and e-ven his own son joined with them in call-ing 
him " hot-head-ed " and "mad," stout Pe-ter s brown 
cheeks grew white, for he found him-self a-lone and 
in a sore strait. 

The Eng-lish cap-tain was will-ing to make good 
terms with the men in-side the fort. lie said they 
should hold on to their arms and keep their farms; 
all he asked of them was to call them-selves Eng-lish 
sub-jects. 

\\ hen the peo-ple heard these terms they flocked 
a-round Stuy-ve-sant to make him a-gree to them. 
I hey begged him not to risk a fight. 

The Eng-lish set-tiers, glad of the chance to live 
once more un-der their own flag, told him bold-ly 
the}' would not fight with him. The Dutch-men, 
think-ing more of the rich trade and snug farms they 



40 New York. 

would have to give up if they held out, swore that 
he should yield. 

Old Pe-ter Stuy-ve-sant stumped a-round on his 
wood-en leg, swore big Dutch oaths, tore Nic-olls' 
let-ter to piec-es, and flung the bits a-way in his rage. 
Then he went and stood by one of the guns, read-y 
to fire it with his own hand. 

One of the men picked up the torn scraps and 
put the let-ter to-geth-er, so that all the people 
should hear what the terms were that the Eng-lish 
want-ed to make with them. \\ hen they found that 
they would have to give up noth-ing, not e-ven their 
own sort of church, they shook their fists in Pe-ter's 
face and brought him to terms. \\ hat could he do? 
He could not fight a whole fleet sin-gle-hand-ed. 
He gave up the fort. It was a brave man's last 
pub-lie act. 

As soon as Nic-olls took the fort, the flag of 
Eng-land was run up on the flag pole, and the name 
of both State and town were changed at once. New 
Neth-er-lands be-came the ftrov-ince of New York, 
and New Am-ster-dam be-came the Cit-y of New 
York. Fort Or-ange, or Wil-liams-town, be-comes 
Al-ba-ny. The State at this time had a-bout twen-ty- 
four towns in all, and the cit-y not more than three 
hun-dred and for-ty-three hous-es. 

[Per-haps I ought to have told you be-fore that 



The End of Dutch Rule. 



4i 



the name New Neth-er-lands was giv-en to a much 
larg-er tract of land than what is now known as New 
York. It took in New Jer-sey and some parts of 
Del-a-ware ; but as the Duke of York soon gave 
a-way that south-ern part of his large grant, we have 








LIS-PE-NARD STREET IN 1721. 



on-ly to do with the land on both sides of the Hud- 
son and up a-bout Lake Cham-plain, in this sto-ry of 
co-lo-ni-al days.] 

As Charles II. of England had mv-en the Eng- 



42 New York. 

lish who set-tied Con-nec-ti-cut a char-ter of their 
own, they thought when Dutch rule came to an end 
they would have a small king-dom all to them-selves 
a-long Long Is-land Sound and the "Fresh Riv-er," 
as they called the Con-nec-ti-cut Riv-er, and did not 
ex-pect to come un-der the Duke of York's rule in 
an-y way. 1 >nt they soon found out that a king's 
word may be brok-en as quick-ly as, if not quick-er 
than, oth-er mens. 

( ol-o-nel Nic-olls, to whom the fort was giv-en 
up, be-came Gov-er-nor Nic-olls, and set to work at 
once to draw the bound-a-ry lines to the Dukes 
lands. Long Is-land was claimed for the State of 
New York, and was com-pelled to o-bey the laws 
known as the "Duke's laws." The State stretched 
a-long both sides of the Hud-son, as tar north as 
Fort Or-ange, whose name was changed by the 
Eng-lish to Al-ba-ny; and Schen-ec-ta-dy was the 
ex-treme out-post of white set-tle-ment. The north- 
ern and west-ern parts of the State be-ing still un-der 
con-trol of the na-tives or of the French, who had, 
from time to time, made in-roads in-to the State from 
( \an-a-da on the North. 

In 1672 war broke out be-tween Eng-land and 
I lol-land, and one of the first things the Dutch did, 
was to send a strong fleet o-ver to re-take New \ ork. 

Gov-er-nor Love-lace, who had come m 1667, 



The End of Dutch Rule. 43 

af-ter Nic-olls, was no such man as the old Dutch 
Gov-er-nor Stuy-ve-sant, and gave the place up at 
once. It took back its old name; but Al-ba-ny was 
called "Or-ange." But the Dutch had held the 
State too short a time to make an-y oth-er chang-es, 
when it was once more giv-en back to Eng-land by 
trea-ty, and. a-gain named New York. 

From that time, up to the date of the Rev-o-lu- 
tion, which sep-a-rat-ed it for ev-er from the moth-er 
coun-try, the Col-on-y of New York was Eng-lish in 
the form of its laws, in its cus-toms, lan-guage, and 
modes of thought. 

The Eng-lish kept up the same friend-ly rela- 
tions with the na-tives that the Dutch liad start-ed 
with, much to the gain of both sides. But from the 
time of that first troub-le of Cham-plain's with the 
In-dians, on Lake Cham-plain, there was noth-ing 
but ha-tred be-tween the French and In-dians. 

The In-dians whom Cham-plain found in the 
north-ern part of this State were a ver-y strong and 
fierce race. At one time they had held full sway on 
the north shore of the St. Law-rence Riv-er. They 
had frame huts and stone ax-es, and showed some 
skill in pot-ter-y when first found by the white men 
on the site of the Ci-ty of Oue-bec. 

They had man-y arts that the whites knew 
noth-ing of. They had been as free as the air 



44 



New York. 



they breathed as far back as their tra-di-tions went. 
They had no books, but the sto-ry of the tribes 
was hand-ed down from fa-ther to son, and they 
were proud of the deeds of cru-el-tv done by their 
" braves." 






\L \ 




H 19, 




-*-t-v A-: 



''"A/haz* 



IN-DIAX C \M1'. 



The French erred in think-ing that this fierce, 
proud race could be fright-ened by their arms and 
their high-sound-ing words m-to a sort of bond-a<»v 
that would make them use-ful to their con-quer-ors 
in man-y ways. 



The End of DuU/i Rule. 45 

One French-man, wis-er than his com-rades, 
wrote home : "These A-mer-i-cans think and say 
that man is born free, and that no one on earth has 
an-y right to take his free-dom from him, for noth-ing 
on earth can make up for its loss." 

The mis-take the French made was in think-ing 
they could man-age a set of men who ielt and spoke 
thus, by fire and sword. They thought they were 
do-ing God and man ser-vice by fol-low-ing the 
sword with the priest in ef-forts to con-vert the Red 
men. 

The Ir-o-quois (com-posed of the five most pow- 
er-ful tribes in the State) saw in the French on-ly 
men who want-ed to rob them of their rich hunt-ing 
grounds, slay their braves, and ru-in their homes. 
These same fierce tribes were strong friends of the 
Eng-lish ; but they hat-ed the French with all their 
might. 

The pe-ri-od of A-mer-i-can his-to-ry, which ex- 
tends from the be-gin-ning of Eng-lish rule to the 
war for the m-cle-pen-clence of the Col-o-nies, is full 
of the dark deeds done on its soil in this nev-er- 
end-ing strife be-tween the French and In-dians. 

For ten years the brave Count Fron-te-nac tried 
to mend mat-ters in the North-ern part of the State ; 
but the Ir-o-quois were not to be han-dled like 
chil-dren. 



4 6 



New } r ork. 



The Eng-lish, who had nev-er been friend-ly with 

the Trench, urged up-on the In-dians to drive the 







rV A<? 



TRAP-PING BEA-VER. 



French out of the West, so that they (the Red men) 
could get all the bea-ver skins they want-ed. 

To this the proud Ir-o-quois an-swered : "We 



Dark Days and Dark Deeds. 47 

will fio^ht the French as lon^ as we have a brave 
left." 

And so they did. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DARK DAYS AND DARK DEEDS. 

A rich and great New France in the New World 

had been the aim and dream of Cham-plain at a 

time when all the kings and rul-ers of the Old World 

were play-ing a big grab game for the vast coun-try 

that Co-lum-bus had first made known to the world. 

But what be-tween a fool-ish and i^-no-rant king- 
• • • 

at home, m-dis-creet priests o-ver here, and men in 

con-trol who could not un-der-stand the strength and 

fierce pride of rude sav-ag-es, New France was at a 

stand-still, while the whites in the south-ern parts of 

the same State were get-ting a-long fine-lv. 

Lou-is XV. th was king of France at that time. 

His sway was ab-so-lute. The peo-ple had no rights 

in his eyes ; they were all his slaves. Noth-ing 

was made in the French col-o-nies. All the clothes, 

food, and even their tools had to be brought from 

France. Of course this kept them weak and dis_ 



New York. 

cour-aged. But the king of France, too far off to 
get a ver-y clear no-tion oi what sort of men the In- 
dians were, grew tart and cross be-cause his share of 
the new lands did not thrive a-pace with those of his 
foes and ri-vals. 

Eng-land and Trance had nev-er been the best 
o( friends; but at first, the space be-tween the set-tle- 
ments made by the Eng-lish and the French, and 
the un-known stretches ot land di-vid-ing them, were 
great e-nough to keep them a-part. 

One more cause of weak-ness a-mong the French 
col-o-nies, was the ex-tent of coun-try they tried to 
cov-er with their small num-ber. The whole coun- 
try be-tween the Al-le-gha-ny Moun-tains and the 
Miss-is-sip-pi Riv-er was claimed by the French who 
had come in-to it from Can-a-da, and called by them 
Xew France. The whole west-ern part of the 
State ot New York was in-clu-ded in their claim. 
Their set-tiers were scat-tered from Can-a-da to New 
Or-leans. 

At first their troub-le was all with the In-dians, 
whose ha-tred Cham-plain had in-curred at the ver-y 
out-set. The Eng-lish, be-ing the al-hes of the Iro- 
quois, were drawn in-to it ; but it was still a fight 
a-mong the col-o-nists in which the home rul-ers did 
not take much in-ter-est. 

I 11 1755 56 a for-mal dec-la-ra-tion of war was 



Dark Days and Dark Deeds. 49 

made by both Eng-land and France, af-ter which the 
war in the State grew to be a ver-y se-ri-ous af-fair. 

Oth-er mat-ters seemed of no im-por-tance in 
view of a great war be-tween two of the lead-ing na- 
tions of the world. New York in a large meas-ure 
bore the brunt of this war as so many of its bat-ties 
were fought on her soil. 

As soon as war was de-clared great prep-a-ra-tions 
were made for it on both sides. The " As-sem-bly" 
of New York, as the ci-ty law-mak-ers were called, 
made lib-er-al of-fers of mon-ey to put the State in a 
po-si-tion to do it-self cred-it. Men were draft-ed, 
arms were bought, and the tie be-tween them-selves 
and their In-dian al-lies was made strong-er in ev-er-y 

way. 

The first of-fi-cers sent out by Eng-land were a 
rath-er poor set, who had a ver-y slight knowl-edge 
of the coun-try, and a ver-y wrong i-de-a of the col-o- 
nists as fight-ers. They were for put-ting the set- 
tlers in the back ground all the time, while they 
them-selves scarce-ly knew how to find their way 
o-ver the wild lands, or how to meet the wild foes 
who were help-ing the French in this war. 

The Eng-lish first sent out Gen-er-al Brad-dock, 
who was a brave, but a self-willed man. Lit-tle was 
done the first year. The Eng-lish and pro-vm-cial 
troops would march first here, then there, fight a 



New York. 



lit-tle, draw back a lit-tle, and con-duct them-selves 
al-to-geth-er like men who did not know what they 
were a-bout. Each Eng-lish Gen-er-al act-ed for 
him-self. 

A month af-tcr this, New York State sent out 



'y^w^/^^ P 







DE-FEAT OF DIES-KAU. 



a force a-gainst Crown Point, un-der Sir \\ il-liam 
John-son, who de-feat-ed the French and In-dians, 
un-der Bar-on Dies-kau, near the south-ern end 
of Lake George; but the year was a bad one for 



Dark Days and Dark Deeds, 51 

Eng-lish arms, ow-ing to the poor of-fi-cers they 
had. 

The French, on the oth-er hand, were un-der the 
lead of a great sol-dier — the Mar-quis de Mont-calm. 
He was on-ly for-ty-four years old, but he had been 
in the ar-my since his four-teenth year, and had 
seen a great deal of fight-ing a-mong the best 
drilled sol-diers in Eu-rope. He was quick to think, 
prompt to act, and with-al cool and calm at all times. 
In short, just the ver-y op-po-site sort of man from 
the shil-ly-shal-ly men who led the Eng-lish at that 
time. 

As soon as Mont-calm land-ed in Oue-bec he 
made all pos-si-ble haste to Lake George, to see for 
him-self how things were apt to go. He soon saw 
that he had not much to fear from the Eng-lish 
Gen-er-als, who were tak-ing their ease, while he was 
tramp-ing through the woods or pad-dling a-bout in 
a ca-noe, lay-ing his plans. He want-ed to strike 
his first blow be-fore they ex-pect-ed it. 

He went back to Mon-tre-al, and start-eel three 
reg-i-ments of troops by boat up the St. Law-rence 
and by land to Fort Fron-te-nac, to Os-we-go, where 
there was a fort he thought he would like to have 
in his own hands. He land-ed and mount-ed 
his can-non in the night, and the fort with all its 
gar-ri-son, one hun-dred and twen-ty can-non, no 



52 New York. 

end of boats, and three chests full of mon-ey be- 
came the prize of his pluck and en-er-gy. 

Acts of brav-er-y like this had a great cf-fect on 
the In-dians. They came in large num-bers to fight 
with this brave French-man. He kept all his men- 
French, Can-a-dians, and In-dians — well to-geth-er, 
and used them at one point af-ter an-oth-er. For 
two years he kept the Eng-lish out of the lands 
claimed by the French by cap-tur-ing and hold-ing 
the forts they had built on the north-ern bound-a-ry 
of the State of New York. 

[As I shall have to use the words " pro-vin-cial 
sol-diers" quite of-ten, I must tell you that they mean 
the sol-diers raised by the col-o-nies or prov-in-ces in 
A-mer-i-ca. | 

Wil-liam Pitt, af-ter-wards Earl of Chat-ham, 
one of the great-est men Eng-land has ev-er pro- 
duced, was put at the head of her cab-i-net in 1758, 
and things were changed for the bet-ter at once in 
the col-o-nies. Re-fore his time, the Eng-lish Gov- 
ern-ment at home, and the Eng-lish of-fi-cers in 
A-mer-i-ca had thrown con-tempt on the pro-vin-cial 
sol-diers. Pitt saw what good stuff was in them, 
and had them brought to the front. They took part 
in ev-er-y bat-tie, and soon came to have more con- 
fi-dence in them-selves. Pitt al-so got all the first lot 
of worth-less of-fi-cers out of the way, and m-sist-ed 



54 New York. 

up-on the Eng-lish forc-es be-ing brought clos-er to- 
geth-er. 

The Eng-lish at-tacked three points this year. 
In Ju-ly, in a sea fight, they cap-tured Lou-is-burg, 
on Cape Bre-ton Isl-and. In No-vem-ber Gen-er-al 
Forbes took Fort Du Quesne, and in hon-or of Pitt 
changed the name to Fort Pitt (now Pitts-burgh), 
and made an at-tack on Ti-con-de-ro-ga, which Mont- 
calm led in per-son a-gainst them. 1 I ere they met 
with de-feat, but a part of the Eng-lish force drove 
the French out of the north-west-ern part of the 
State, which was do-ing a good deal. 

Pitt al-so sent out a fleet of ships to take the ships 
of France which were car-ry-ing sup-plies of food and 
arms to Can-a-da with such suc-cess, that soon Mont- 
calm had but half a pound of bread a day to give 
each man. 

There were but a few sheep and head of stock in 
the coun-try, and the men had been so bus-v hght-ing 
that no grain had been raised. Now that the ships 
of Png-land were cut-ting off his sup-plies, brave 
Mont-calm be-gan to de-spair. 

He wrote to the French Min-is-ter of State at 
home: "New Prance needs peace. With-out such 
good tor-tune as I can-not hope for, or un-less the 
Eng-lish make blun-ders they will soon take Can-a- 
da from us." He was too far-sighted not to see the 



55 



en 
end. 



Dark Days and Dark Deeds. 

d a long way off, but too brave not to fight to the 




u *<«-t n 



A FRON-TIER POST. 



Success and the spir-it of Pitt fired ev-er-y 



56 New York. 

breast in the Eng-lish Col-o-nies. In ev-er-y town 
of New Eng-land and New York men were ea-ger 
to en-list. The peo-ple paid war tax-es cheer-ful-ly ; 
any-thing to cap-ture Can-a-da, and drive the hat-ed 
French-men from A-mer-i-ean soil. 

When Mont-calm learned that the Eng-lish 
were a-bout to at-tack Oue-bec, he was o-bliged to 
draw all his men in-side the walls for its de-fence. 
In this way, all the out-ly-ing French posts fell in-to 
the hands of the Eng-lish with-out any more blood- 
shed. 

From Lou-is-burg, the Eng-lish, un-der Gen-er-al 
Wolfe, sailed up the St. Law-rence Riv-er to at-tack 
the French who had shut them-selves in be-hind its 
strong walls 

Wolfe had com-mand of the riv-er, but the 
ci-ty he want-ed to take, was a ci-ty set up-on a 
hill. This cliff was high, sharp, and steep. At its 
ver-y top was a lev-el spot called the " Plains of 
A-bra-ham." 

Gen-er-al Wolfe had ten thou-sand men in the 
boats which glid-ed so qui-et-lv past the Ci-ty of 
Oue-bec to land at a point be-low it. As they stole 
down the riv-er at night-fall, they talked in low tones 
of the task set them by their res-o-lute chief. \\ olfe 
had de-ter-mined to scale the cliff, and force the 
French to meet him on the Plains of A-bra-ham. 



Dark Days and Dark Deeds. 57 

It was no slight thing to do. They had to grasp the 
roots of trees to climb up by, while the men be-hind 
gave a lift to those in front. 

The ris-ing sun saw ten thou-sand Eng-lish-men 
stand-ing on the plains read-y to fight. The drums 
beat on Oue-bec, and the sol-diers of France came 
out to meet them. The bat-tie last-ed scarce-ly more 
than a quar-ter of an hour. When it end-ed Que-bec 
be-longed to Eng-land, but two brave Gen-er-als lay 
dv-ing — Wolfe and Mont-calm. Wolfe's last words 
were : " God be praised ; I die hap-py." Mont-calm's 
were : "I shall not live to see Que-bec in Eng-lish 
hands." 

The strug-gle be-tween France and Eng-land for 
the con-trol of the West-ern Con-ti-nent last-ed but a 
short while af-ter this. Mont-re-al fell in-to Eng-lish 
hands in 1 760, and the oth-er French forts were 
manned by Eng-lish sol-diers. 

Peace came in 1763, and the cit-i-zen sol-diers of 
New York glad-ly turned from the con-quest of 
Can-a-da to the com-fort and qui-et of their own 
fire-sides. 



58 New York. 



CHAPTER V. 

PEACEFUL DAYS FOR THE COLONY. 

Be-fore go-ing an-y far-ther let us see what was 
the state ol af-fairs in the prov-ince of New York at 
the close of the French war. \\ hat were her men 
do-ing in the way of im-prov-ing their State dur-ing 
the ten or fif-teen years that came af-ter that con- 
flict, and what had they done by way of mak-ing 
them-selves strong and self-sup-port-ing ? At the 
time of Que-bec's fall the men of A-mer-i-ca had 
no thought nor wish to ev-er be freed from their 
ser-vice to the moth-er coun-try, as Eng-land was 
called. 

Up to the year 1764 Eng-land had no sub-jects 
in all her wide-spread do-mam, who were more loy-al 
to her in thought, in word, and in deed than the 
thir-teen A-mer-i-can Col-o-nies, which had by that 
time strug-gled through the hard-est times of their 
in-fan-cy, and were grown to a lus-tv youth, full of 
fresh life, new l-de-as, and brim-ming o-ver with 
en-er-gy, all ol which they were will-ing and ea-ger 
to spend in the cause oi the moth-er coun-try. 

They were proud of her, as big boys are apt to 



Peaceful Days for the Colony. 59 

be proud of a moth-er whose gra-ces and great-ness 
are plain to all the world. They want-ed no bet-ter 
guide in dress, man-ners, re-li-gion, or laws than she 
was to them. Eu-rope sent o-ver all the need-y and 
for-lorn ones that she did not know what to do with 
(pret-ty much as she is do-ing to-day), and A-mer-i-ca 
o-pened wide her arms to them, pret-ty much as she 
is do-ino- to-dav. Some one said such was their love 

O J 

for the land that gave them birth, that they could be 
led by a thread. 

The pop-u-la-tion of all the Col-o-nies a-bout this 
time was 2,000,000. New York's share of this was 
not more than 100,000. The State was di-vid-ed 
at that time in-to the coun-ties of Suf-folk, Queen's, 
King's, Rich-moncl, New York, West Ches-ter, 
Dutch-ess, Or-ange, Ul-ster, and Al-ba-ny. The 
set-tle-ments, how-ev-er, were al-most con-fined to 
New York (coun-ty), Stat-en and Long Isl-ands, and 
strung a-long the banks of the Hud-son and the Mo- 
hawk, or in the near neigh-bor-hood. Scho-har-ie 
Creek was the west-ern lim-it of the set-tle-ments on 
the Mo-hawk. 

The cause of this slow growth of a State which 

•of-fered such im-mense at-trac-tions to set-tiers, lav 

m the fact that New York, of all the Col-o-nies, had 

the most to dread from the sav-a^-es on the Can-a-da 

side. For this rea-son the con-quest of Can~a-da 



60 New York. 

had been a mat-ter of great im-por-tance to it for 
sev-en-ty years. And great was the joy o-ver its fall. 

No soon-er did the men oi New \ ork feel se-cure 
from troub-le from that source, than they set them- 
selves to work in hard earn-est to show what they 
could do with the rich lands that were be-gin-ning 
to feel like home to them. 

At this time the story of one of the Col-o-nies is 
pret-ty much the sto-ry oi all of them. There was a 
cer-tain hke-ness in the rules they made lor con-troll- 
ing pub-lie af-fairs, be-cause one and all they cop-ied 
them Irom the moth-er coun-try. 

In all of these laws the peo-ple held fast by the 
right to e-lect men from a-mong their own num-ber 
to rep-re-sent them in what was called "The As 
sem-bly." They were in-clined, at hrst, to o-ver-look 
some harsh meas-ures on the part of the home Gov- 
ern-ment, nev-er once dream-ing that a sep-a-ra-tion 
would ev-er he forced on them. 

The Eng-lish Par-lia-ment passed an act to pre- 
vent the Col-o-nies from mak-ing cer-tain things for 
them-selves. They want-ed to force them, you see, 
to buy all these things from Eng-land. 

The Col-o-nies were all thriv-ing. They had in 
plen-ty all things that were real-ly need-ful ; hut few 
lux-u-ries found then" way o-ver here at first. The 
plain way in which e-ven those who were a-ble to live 



Peaceful Days for the Colony 



61 



bet-ter, lived, is shown in some let-ters writ-ten by 
Ben-ja-min Frank-lin from Eng-land to his wife. 
He speaks of the ta-ble cloths he sends o-ver, as if 
ta-ble cloths were by no means com-mon things on 
A-mer-i-can break-fast ta-bles in those days. 

The French and In-clian war had done much to 
eive the Co-lo-ni-al sol-diers con-fi-dence in them- 
selves. They had fought side by side with the 
trained troops of the grand-est ar-my in the world. 
In fact, they had held their ground of-ten, when the 
" Brit-ish-ers" had run a-way. 

At first, the Col-o-nists were too bus-y plant-ing 
hunt-ing, fish-ing, and trad-ing to think of train-ing 
for sol-diers. As they grew rich-er, they be-gan to 
make things for them-selves. Why should they not, 
with the raw stuff for so man-y things read-y to 
hand ? 

They be-gan to build ships, and to think of com- 
merce for them-selves. Their As-sem-blies (as their 
bod-ies of law-mak-ers were called) of-fered to grant 
mon-ey to per-sons who would take up such pur- 
suits. Com-merce means trade be-tween dif-fer-ent 
coun-tries. 

This the Eng-lish mer-chants did not like. 
They wished to keep the trade of the Col-o-nies in 
their own hands. They got Par-lia-ment to pass an 
act for-bid-dino- the Col-o-nies to trade with an-y 




62 



PEACE-FUL DAYS. 



Peaceful Days for the Colony. 6 



6 



oth-er coun-try than Eng-land, or to let ships from 
an-v for-eign port an-chor in A-mer-i-can wa-ters. 

It is true, this act, which is called the " Nav-i-ga- 
tion Act," was aimed more at the New Eng-land 
Col-o-nies, where peo-ple had gone ea-ger-ly in-to 
com-mer-cial life ; but as the Col-o-nies were bound 
to stand or fall to-geth-er, I tell you of it here, as 
be-ing one of the first of Eng-land's man-y un-just 
acts to-wards the Col-o-nies which she ought to have 
helped and en-cour-aged in ev-er-y way. They were 
also told they should not make an-y-thing out of 
their wool, i-ron, pa-per, and leath-er — no hats, no 
an-y-thing. They were to send all their raw stuff to 
the old coun-try, and they were to buy of her all 
they want-ed, in re-turn. 

In one way and an-oth-er the peo-ple found 
means of dis-o-bey-ing these un-just laws. The 
" Nav-i-ga-tion Act" caused pi-rates to be ver-y 
plen-ti-ful and ver-y troub-le-some in those ear-ly 
days. These made nav-i-ga-tion so un-safe, that in 
1697 Cap-tain Rob-ert Kidd, a New York ship mas- 
ter, was sent out a-gainst them. Not with ver-y 
good re-sults though, for he turned pi-rate him-self, 
and ran a-way with the ship. He was bold e-nough 
to come back home af-ter three years of this law-less 
life, was ta-ken to Eng-land, tried, and hung. Cap- 
tain Kidd is sup-posed to have bur-ied great wealth 



64 



New York. 



some-where on Long Isl-and shore, and man-y sil-ly 
peo-ple have wast-ed much time and la-bor try-ing 
to find it. Pi-ra-cy in A-mer-i-can wa-ters is not 
heard of af-ter the year 1720. 

News-pa-pers and books were ea-sy to get in the 
Col-o-nies af-ter the set-ting up of the first print-ing 
press, at Cam-bridge, in 1639. And when King's 
( ol-lege (now Co-lum-bi-a) was found-ed in New 
York Ci-ty, in 1754, it brought the num-ber of col- 

le-ges up to six. So 
you will see that in 
the midst of all else 
they had to do — clear 
land, build hous-es, 
fi g h t sav-ag-es, and 
con-tend with a se-vere 
ch-mate in an un-known 
land, those grand old 
first set-tiers did not 
of the ne-ces-si-tv for train-ing the 
minds of the young men who were to be the act-ors 
in the great e-vents which were e-ven then cast-ing 
their shad-ows be-fore. 

In 1763 New York and New Hamp-shire had a 
dis-pute o-ver their bound-a-ry lines, which led to a 
great deal of con-fu-sion and bit-ter-ness, but which, 
at last, end-ed in the west-ern bank of the Con-nec- 




CAP-TAIN KIDD BUR-Y-ING TREAS-URE. 



once lose sight 



Peaceful Days for the Colony. 65 

ti-cut Riv-er be-ing es-tab-lished as the right bound- 
a-ry line be-tween the two States ; and the Gov-ern- 
ment of New York took con-trol of all the settle- 
ments made with-in that line. 

It was not to be ex-pect-ed that thir-teen col-o- 
nies, peo-pled by men from all parts of the Old 
World, serv-ing dif-fer-ent rul-ers and con-trolled by 
suoh dif-fer-ent de-sires, should work to-geth-er at 
first as smooth-ly and nice-ly as piec-es of the same 
ma-chine. But af-ter the French and In-dian war, 
the col-o-nists knew each oth-er bet-ter, and had a 
more broth-er-ly feel-ing for each oth-er. They had 
come to see that their m-ter-ests were one, and that, 
what was good or bad for one, was good or bad for 
all. 

Dur-ing that war, which last-ed sev-en years, 
they were called "pro-vin-cials ;" but dur-ing the 
days of peace that fol-lowed, they be-gan to call 
them-selves " A-mer-i-cans." They were no more 
mere New York-ers or Vir-^in-ians or New Eng- 
land-ers. They were one peo-ple, and, as one 
peo-ple, they were read-y to act in de-fence of A-mer- 
i-can rights. 

It seems strange that Eng-land could not see in 
time that these far-off chil-dren of hers had grown to 
be such strong stur-dy fel-lows, that it would not be 
safe to pro-voke them too far. In-stead of tak-ing 



66 New York. 

a moth-er's pride in their growth and in-creas-ing 
wealth, she saw in it all on-ly the means of pay-ing 
off some ot her own old debts. 

Just sup-pose, now, you had spent a great deal 
of time, say daws and weeks and months, fill-ing a 
lit-tle sav-ings hank, that you looked on as your ver-y 
own; and sup-pose your moth-er got m-to debt, and 
with-out your eon-sent helped her-self to the con-tents 
of your bank, what a shock-ing bad sort of a moth-er 
you would think her; and would you not cry out in 
re-sent-ment ? 

While the Col-o-nies shared pret-ty much a-like 
the tri-als and hard-ships of those first days, there 
were some rea-sons why the State of New York had 
to bear a ver-y large share of them. 

New York State was the chief cen-tre of im- 
ports. New York Ci-ty took the lead in ques-tions 
of state, of so-cial dis-play, and of learn-ing. The 
Gov-er-nor lived there, and the As-sem-bly met 
there, un-iess some ur-gent cause a-gainst it a-rose. 
The on-ly Brit-ish gar-ri-son kept up in the Col- 
o-nies af-ter the close of the French war had its 
head-quar-ters there. 

Men of broad views and lib-er-al ed-u-ca-tion 
were nu-mer-ous there, and these men were quick to 
see and to point out signs ot dan-ger to the grow-ing 
State. 




; 




l|P| 





68 New York. 

The vast es-tates of the pa-troons had come down 
with al-most prince-ly pow-er to the sons of the first 
pa-troons. While such a class of men kept out 
small farm-ers, they brought in bet-ter stock, hors-es, 
cows, and sheep; and bet-ter seed and modes of 
farm-ing than were to be found else-where. 

1 he man-or hous-es on these grand es-tates were 
the homes of men who felt them-selves to be the 
peers of the ver-y men in the old coun-try who tried 
to keep them un-der with such a high hand, and 
they were not to be dis-maved. We read of one of 
these land-lords, Sir \\ il-liam John-son, who had, 
be-fore 1762, one hun-dred fam-i-lies a-bout him, and 
who made strong ef-forts to ed-u-cate the In-dians, 
who were a-mong his ten-ants. These things made 
of New York the lead-ing Col-o-ny. 

All this time the Brit-ish Min-is-ters were lay-ing 
their plans to ex-tract mon-ev from the Col-o-nies, 
and New York held a ver-y im-por-tant place with 
them. The strife be-gan o-ver the pay of the Chief 
Jus-ti-ces. Eng-land said she would se-lect the Jus- 
tices, but New York must pay their sal-a-ries. 
I his was but one of man-y acts which forced New 
York in-to a po-si-tion of di-rect and o-pen op-po-si- 
tion to the moth-er coun-try. She de-mand-ed, as a 
right, that New York State should be left free from 
the load of un-just tax-es which would drive men 



The Folly of England. 69 

a-way from their homes, and bring in dis-cord and 
pov-er-ty. She asked for her rights, du-ti-ful-ly, at 
first. But England was bent on not heed-ing the 
out-cry from the Col-o-nies, as we shall see. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FOLLY OF ENGLAND. 

Real troub-le be-tween the Col-o-nies and their 
moth-er coun-try be-gan ver-y soon af-ter the peace 
of 1 765. 

Laws to con-trol af-fairs in A-mer-i-ca had of-ten 
been passed by the Eng-lish law-mak-ers, and meek-ly 
sub-mit-ted to by the peo-ple who looked up to the 
King of Eng-land as their true head. Some of 
these acts, such as the one reg-u-lat-ing the. post 
of-fi-ces, were for the good of the Col-o-nies, and they 
saw as much. Oth-ers, which were not for the good 
of the coun-try, they were too bus-y with their 
own af-fairs to think much a-bout un-til the time 
came to en-force them ; then by fierce re-sist-ance to 
them they showed that they had some views, and a 
good deal of will of their own. 

The first act which most thor-ough-ly an-gered 
the col-o-nists is known as the Stamp Act. The 




7o 



CRY-ING THE - I AMI'S 



The Folly of England Ji 

Eng-lish Par-lia-ment passed it in the spring of 1765, 
and it was to go in-to force the No-vem-ber af-ter. 
From that date the law said all le-gal pa-pers, such 
as wills, bonds, notes, and deeds, must be print-ed 
on stamped pa-per, sent o-ver here by Eng-land, for 
which the peo-ple must pay some-thing to the Crown 
of Eng-land. If they did not use this stamped pa- 
per in A-mer-i-ca, their wills, bonds, notes, and 
deeds would be " null and void." That was, they 
would not be good for any-thing. 

This Stamp Act caused great ex-cite-ment on 
both sides of the o-cean, for there were some men 
in the Eng-lish Par-lia-ment wise e-nough to see 
what a false step Eng-land was tak-ing, and just 
e-nough to want to pro-tect the Col-o-nies from such 
a great wrong. 

A-mong these was Mr. Pitt, who al-ways stood 
up for the Col-o-nies a-gainst the peers who want-ed 
to wrong them. Mr. Pitt op-posed the Stamp Act 
ver-y bold-ly, on the ground that Eng-land had no 
right to tax the Col-o-nies at all, and told the peers 
as much to their fac-es. 

When the stamped pa-pers, which it was meant to 
force the Col-o-nies to use, got to New York, they 
were "cried" (that is called) a-bout the streets un-der 
the ti-tle "The Fol-ly of Eng-land and the Ru-in of 
A-mer-i-ca," and the mob tried to get at them and 




7- 



BURN-ING THE STAMPS. 



The Folly of England. 73 

burn them up. The first lot was put a-way in the 
Ci-ty Hall for safe-ty. The next lot that came o-ver, 
ten box-es in all, was burned at once. 

On the 6th of No-vem-ber, six days af-ter the 
Eng-lish Par-lia-ment had ex-pect-ed to see its child- 
like col-o-nists be-gin to do all their writ-ing on the 
stamped pa-per sent out for that pur-pose, the same 
child-like col-o-nists met in the fields a-bout New 
York to ap-point men to cor-re-spond with the oth-er 
Col-o-nies on this sub-ject, which was to them so 
grave as to call for u-nit-ed ac-tion. 

This call for u-nit-ed ac-tion brought on what is 
known as "The Stamp Act Con-gress," which met 
in New York Ci-ty, Oc-to-ber 7, 1765. 

All of the Col-o-nies ap-proved of it, and near-ly 
all of them sent men to it to say so. It was a bold 
thing for the Col-o-nies to do. It was the first sign 
that they were read-y to act to-geth-er to op-pose the 
moth-er coun-try ; but as she was still their head she 
could pun-ish them for such acts. 

They could not make laws, but they could u-nite 
in say-ing what they thought their rights were ; and 
this they did in words which were ver-y firm, and 
yet as mild as pos-si-ble. Eng-land was not look-ing 
for the Stamp Act to make such a stir in A-mer-i-ca. 
It took her quite a-back. The Eng-lish mer-chants 
and man-u-fact-ur-ers were ta-ken aback also, and 



74 New York. 

bad-ly scared, for the first thing the A-mer-i-can 
mer-chants and peo-ple did in their Stamp Con-gress 
was to say that they would not buy, nor wear, nor eat 
an-y more Eng-lish goods un-til the hate-ful Stamp 
Act should be re-pealed. Those Bnt-ish mer : 
chants were quick to send pe-ti-tions to Par-ha- 
ment, beg-ging for* the re-peal of the Stamp Act. 
Mr. Pitt and oth-er friends of the col-o-msts pressed it 
too. 

Par-lia-ment did re-peal it ear-ly in 1766, but said 
that it still held the right to tax the Col-o-nies when- 
ev-er it should want to. 

In 1770 they put this right to the test, but did 
not come off an-y bet-ter than they had with the 
Stamp Act. They tried a new plah. The tax was 
ta-ken off ev-er-y thing but tea. And the tax on 
tea was made so ver-y low, and so nice-lv ar-ranged 
with the tea mer-chants, that the tea drink-ers in the 
New World could get their tea, e-ven af-ter pay-ing 
the tax, at a price no great-er than they had al-ways 
paid for the tea a-lone. 

Par-lia-ment must ei-ther have thought the men 
oi the Col-o-nies ver-y stu-pid not to see through this 
trick, or had not yet come to un-der-stand that 
the men of A-mer-i-ca were fight-mg for a great 
prin-ci-ple of right, which was of far more worth to 
them than a few pence more or less on ev-er-y 



The Folly of England. 75 

pound of tea. Eng-land did not meet this dif-fi- 
cul-ty in a brave, or e-ven an hon-est, way. It on-ly 
ex-cit-ed the Col-o-nies to a still great-er pitch of 
re-sent-ment to see she meant to trick them in-to 
pay-ing the tax. 

In South Car-o-li-na, at Charles-ton, they put the 
first tea that came o-ver af-ter this a-way in damp 
holes, and let it spoil. At New York and some 




A ROOM IN CO-LO-NI-AL TIMES. 



oth-er plac-es they would not let the tea ships land 
at all, but forced them to take their car-goes back 
where they came from. At Bos-ton they dis-posed 
of it in ver-y live-ly fash-ion by throw-ing it all in-to 
the sea ; and by the time all the Col-o-nists had thus 
pre-vent-ed the land-ing of the taxed tea, the Eng- 
lish Gov-ern-ment be-gan to wake up to the fact that 



j6 New York. 

she had a ver-y bold and stub-born set of chil-drcn 
on this side of the vva-ter. 

New York all this time was an ob-ject of keen 
in-ter-est. She did not seem to wait for ad-vice or 
lead-er-ship from an-y source. Her po-si-tion was 
not to be mis-un-der-stood, for her men and her press 
were fear-less and out-spok-en on all oc-ca-sions, as 
they had a right to be. 

A bold speech was print-eel in one of the pa-pers 
o-ver the name of " Free-man," which said that " if 
the in-ter-ests of the moth-er coun-trv and her Col- 
o-nies could not be made one, if the same laws could 
not hold good for both, if the good of the moth-er 
coun-try called for the sac-ri-fice of the most pre- 
cious rights of her Col-o-nies, their rights of mak-ing 
their own laws and dis-pos-ing of their own prop- 
er-ty by men of their own choos-ing, then the soon-er 
they part-ed the bet-ter;" and a good deal more was 
said by " Free-man" to prove that A-mer-i-cans 
meant to be free men in truth as well as in word. 

Par-lia-ment was by this time pret-ty well out of 
tem-per with the col-o-nists, and rushed tor-ward 
the fin-al acts that com-plet-ed the es-trange-ment 
be-tween Eng-land and her Col-o-nies. 

These acts are called the "lour in-tol-er-a-ble 
acts," and al-though the)' do not bear on Xew York 
par-ti-cu-lar-ly, they are treat-ed of here as nec-es- 





\f 



^s- 



^ygSSm&J: #\ C'-lLf-A;,'/ i 'it- ; '-^f^ Jfflfi&i/' '/ 

^^^#- ':---:' .-'■-■'-■ -^ 



s=- ~'^-^ ' ' ss h. 










IN-FANT PA-TRI-OTS. 



;8 New York. 

sa-ry to ex-plain the fi-nal out-break be-tween the 
two coun-trie.s. 

The first of these was called the l4 Bos-ton Port 
Bill." No ships were to go out of or m-to the har- 
bor of Bos-ton. This was meant to pun-ish the 
Bos-ton folks for wast-ing all that good tea ; but it 
on-ly served to en-ra<»e all the Col-o-nies still more 
a-gainst K no-land, and to band them to-geth-er more 
close-ly. 

The sec-ond was the " Mass-a-chu-setts Bill." 
This aimed to give the en-tire con-trol of that Col- 
o-ny into the hands of the king's a-gents by tak-ing 
a-way the char-ter from the Col-o-ny. As none 
of the Col-o-nies knew which one would next meet 
with the same in-sult, it on-ly brought them clos-er 

to-<>"eth-er in re-sist-ance. The third was the kk Trans- 

<> 

por-ta-tion Bill," which or-dered that an-y A-mer- 
i-can who should kill a man in re-sist-ing the laws 
must be sent to Eng-land for tn-al. 

The fourth was the lk Que-bec Act" winch would 
have un-done a-bout all the Col-o-nies had fought for 
in driv-ing the French out of the coun-try north of 
the O-hi-o, and east oi the Miss-is-sip-pi, if it had 
ev-er gone m-to force. 

All of these acts were to be forced up-on the 
Col-o-nies by a stand-ing ar-my of Brit-ish troops 
sta-tioned in the Col-o-nies to awe the peo-ple. You 



The Folly of England 70 

can fan-cy that no ver-y kind feel-ings ex-ist-ed for 
the " red coats," as the Brit-ish sol-diers were call-ed 
by the en-raged col-o-nists. 

Gov-er-nor Col-den wrote back to Ene-land : 
" What-ev-er hap-pens in this place (New York 
Ci-ty) it has the great-est ef-fect on the oth-er Col- 
o-nies, who are read-y to act in all things just as 
New York may lead." 

The Brit-ish men-of-war were in her har-bor, and 
Brit-ish sol-diers were quar-tered on her peo-ple ; but 
she was read-y to make ev-er-y sac-ri-fice for lib-er-ty, 
as she did when the time came. A large part of 
this sad state of things was, no doubt, due to the 
fact that the Eng-hsh Gov-ern-ment de-pend-ed for 
its knowl-edoe of the wants and feel-ino*s of the col- 
o-nists up-on what was told it by the co-lo-ni-al Gov- 
er-nors. Most of these men were ei-ther bad men, 
or weak men — some-times both, and told things in 
which-ev-er way would make it smooth-est for them- 
selves. 

George III. was king of Eng-land at this time; 
and while he was not a bad man, he was an ex- 
treme-ly hard-head-ed and fool-ish one, and was so 
ig-no-rant of the char-ac-ter of the men he had to 
deal with, that he was still bent up-on forc-ing them 
to sub-mit, and real-ly thought he could do it, too. 

Af-ter the pas-sage of the Bos-ton Port Bill, the 



So Neiv York. 

ex-cite-ment ran high-er than ev-er, and a Con-ti-nen- 
tal Con-gress was a-greed up-on. That means that 
men from all the Col-o-nies were called up-on to 
meet, and to ex-press them-selves boldly and o-pen-ly 
on the sub-ject of these op-pres-sive acts, and of re- 
sist-ance to them. 

The men of New York at this cn-sis were not 
all o( one mind. So hold a thing as to de-fy Eng- 
land, and to say that they would set up rul-ers of 
their own a-gainst her, seemed to some of them a 
thing; too bold to do. They were for stand-ing a 
lit-tle more; wait-ing a lit-tle long-er, in hopes that 
things would work back to the old kind foot-ing. 
But to the more clear-head-ed a-mong them, those 
who had watched this dis-pute as it grew hot-ter and 
fierc-er ev-er-y day for the ten years it had been 
go-ing on could see no good in long-er sub-mis-sion. 

The kill-ing oi some mi-li-tia men by the Brit-ish 
troops at Lex-ing-ton, in Mas-sa-chu-setts, on the 9th 
of A-pril of the year 1775 was the act which brought 
ev-er-y true A-mer-i-can to the point of re-sist-ing 
cru-el-tv and op-pres-sion, e-ven though that bru-tal 
blow had been struck by a hand they had been 
taught to love and o-bey. 



The First Shot. 81 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FIRST SHOT. 

The first Con-ti-nen-tal Con-gress met at Phil-a- 
del-phi-a Sep-tem-ber 5, 1774. 

It met to say in words that no one could mis-take 
that the Col-o-nies had the right to rule and to tax 
them-selves, and would not yield that right to an-y 
pow-er on earth. They asked that Par-lia-ment 
should not tax them for an-y-thing un-less they were 
re-pre-sent-ed in that bod-y. The way in which 
they said all this was so mild that the King and his 
blind cour-tiers, who saw in the A-mer-i-can peo-ple 
on-ly a lot of poor, rude farm-ers, who could eas-i-lv 
be scold-ed or coaxed back to their al-le-m-ance, 
re-fused to be warned. 

The peo-ple of the Col-o-nies were much hot-ter 
in tem-per than the mild words of their Con-gress 
would have made one think. They went to work to 
get to-geth-er all the arms they could find, be-gan to 
make gun-pow-der, and, in place of the As-sem-blies 
by which they had been gov-erned, they called 
Pro-vin-cial Con-gress-es. The As-sem-blies were 
all full of men who were read-y to act for the King 



82 New York. 

a-gainst the col-o-nists, as thev were of-fi-cers sent 
out by the King, but the col-o-nists had to pay their 
wa-ges. 

In one part of the mes-sage sent by that first 
Con-gress to the King were these words : " You have 
been told that we are anx-ious to free our necks from 
your yoke. This is not so. Let us be as free as 
you are, and we will al-ways look on a un-ion with 
you as a boon and a great Jov. ,, 

IUit George III. did not love the Col-o-nies, and 
he ei-ther could not or would not see the bold spir-it 
that lay un-der these mild words. 

There were a good man-y rea-sons why New 
\ ork should have been more slow to take fire at the 
in-sults heaped on the col-o-nists than some of her 
sis-ter Col-o-nies; and the Eng-lish Gov-ern-ment 
bent all its ef-forts to get her to act with it a-gainst 
the oth-er Col-o-nies. 

New York was the most im-por-tant place in 
ev-er-y way. She stood a-bove her sis-ters in point 
of strength and of rich-es. In all her coun-ties were 
men who had got-ten large grants of land from the 
King, and who, fear-ing to lose these lands, took part 
with the moth-er coun-try, and vi-o-lent-ly ob-ject-ed 
to an-y move for sep-a-ra-tipn. These men were 
called I o-ries, and were a source of grief to the col- 
o-nists in war times. 



The First Shot. 



In New York Ci-ty was a char-tered col-leee 
which taught that the peo-ple should bow to the 
King, as they did at home, where the King and the 
Church of Eng-land were the high-est pow-ers. 

A-part from all this, New York had a pop-u-la- 




A TO-RY FAM-I-LY AT BREAK-FAST. 



tion scat-tered o-ver a re-mon close to the bor-ders of 
Can-a-da, from whence sav-age foes might be let 
loose up-on them in case of war. All this helped to 
make her cau-tious. 



84 New York. 

Of so much im-por-tance did it seem to King 
George III. to keep this rich and pow-er-ful Col-o-ny 
on the side of the crown, that Ik: stooped to coax the 
men of New York in-to a good hn-mor. He went 
so far as to pro-pose to ex-empt this State from some 
of the laws which bore so hard up-on all the Col-o- 
nies. But that New York would not hear of. 

It would have been hard for Great Brit-am to 
know just ex-act-ly what to do with such Col-o-nies 
if they had been right un-der her own eye. I hey 
were so un-like her home sub-jects. These Col-o- 
nies were full of men from all parts of the world- 
men who were free of speech, tree of thought, and 
ver-y quick to act in all things that touched that new- 
found Iree-dom ol theirs. 

As it was, a wide and storm-y o-cean lay be- 
tween Eng-land and her an-gry sub-jects. There 
were three thou-sand miles of wa-ter o-ver which 
troops had to be car-ried in slow sail-ing-ves-sels, 
which some-times took months to cross, and which 
made it all just that much hard-er to ad-just. 

The fact that the Eng-lish Par-lia-ment was 
read-y to show New York great fa-vor, and that 
New York was a tri-fle slow in act-ing with the first 
Con-ti-nen-tal Con-gress, caused some bad feel-ing 
a-mong the oth-er Col-o-nies, for which they soon 
had cause to feel sor-ry. 



The First Shot. 85 

New York, at heart, was one with the rest of 
the A-mer-i-can Col-o-nies, as she showed when the 
time came for her to bear the brunt of the war. 

It was a-greed, in the first Con-gress, that no 
goods of an-y sort should be brought from Great 
Brit-ain, or the West In-dies. This re-solve brought 
on a sharp dis-pute be-tween the To-nes and the pa- 
triots. The To-nes were not will-ing to give up the 
com-forts they were used to, and the pa-tn-ots were 
not will-ing they should im-port them an-y long-er. 
These last were bent up-on put-ting New York on 
the same foot-ing of re-sist-ance to in-jus-tice with 
her sis-ter Col-o-nies. 

The As-sem-bly, full as it was of the King's 
of-fi-cers, could not be re-lied on to give the true 
sen-ti-ments of the Col-o-ny ; so in New York Ci-ty 
a com-mit-tee was formed of one hun-dred men, 
" to di-rect such meas-ures as may be thought best 
for the good of the Col-o-ny." This was called the 
" Pro-vin-cial Con-gress;" and thus, as you will see, 
be-fore a gun was fired, or a drop of blood shed, 
King Georges pow-er o-ver his A-mer-i-can subjects 
had be-gun to tot-ter to its fall. 

Gen-er-al Ga^e was at the head of the roy-al 
troops in the Col-o-nies at the time of these ex-cit-ing 
move-ments on the part of the dif-fer-ent Pro-vm-cial 
Con-gress-es. He felt so un-safe in Bos-ton, that 



86 New York. 

he be-gan to e-rect for-ti-fi-ca-tions on the neck of 
land which joins that place to the main-land, and to 
send out spies to find out what the A-mer-i-cans 
were do-ing by way of car-ry-ing out their threats of 
re-sist-ance. Pie was told that guns and pow-der 
were be-ing stored in Con-cord, a vil-lage a-bout 
twen-ty miles from Bos-ton. 

lie sent eight hnn-dred men out to de-stroy 
these stores, mean-ing they should do it with great 
se-cre-cy. 

But word of it was sent out from Bos-ton to all 
parts of the Col-o-ny by men who rode all night to 
give warn-ing to the co-lo-m-al troops. If you have 
nev-er read Long-fel-low's beau-ti-ful vers-es called 
the ll Mid-night Ride of Paul Re-vere," do so now, 
and you will learn how the lk Min-ute men," as they 
were called, got that warn-ing. 

Lex-ing-ton lies on the road be-tween Bos-ton 
and Con-cord. Gen-er-al Gages men, who had been 
sent to de-strov the arms at Con-cord, marched in-tO 
it be-fore sun-rise, and, to their sur-pnse, found 
a-bout six-ty half-armed men drawn up in a line on 
the vil-lage green. As Ma-jor Pit-cairn was at the 
head of the roy-al troops, he gave a quick or-der. 
IPs men fired. Eight of the min-ute men were 
killed, some were hurt, and the rest fled. 

This was the first blood shed in the Rev-ode- 



The First Shot. 



87 



tion ; this, as some one says, was " the shot that was 
heard round the world." Af-ter fir-ing it, the roy-al 
troops marched on to Con-cord and cle-stroyed the 
arms they had been sent out to de-stroy ; but to 
re-turn to Bos-ton was not so sim-ple a thing to do. 






m~ ■ 




THE WARN-ING. 



By this time the news of that shot had spread 
like wild-fire ; the church bells were rung, and all 
a-long the road by which those rash troops had to 
re-trace their steps were men burn-ing to pun-ish 
them for that bru-tal act. The min-ute men poured 



88 



New York. 









hot shot in-to them from ev-er-y fence, and ev-er-y 
house, and from be-hind the rocks that lay a-long the 
road-side. Be-fore they got back to Lex-ing-ton, the 
Brit-ish troops were in full re-treat. The whole 
Brit-ish force was sent out from Bos-ton to meet and 
pro-tect them, but the A-mer-i-cans kept up the pur- 
suit un-til they found safe-ty un-der the guns of their 

ships of war. 

Thus be-gan the 
war of the Rev-o-lu- 
tion, in which all the 
Col-o-nies were to take 
part, and which was to 
end in mak-ing of them 
great, u-mt-ed, and free 
States. 

When it was de-cid- 
ed to put the coun-try 
on a war foot-ing, the 
Sons of Lib-er-ty (as the A-mer-i-can pa-tn-ots were 
called) in New York act-ed with prompt en-er-gy. 
They would not let a ship leave port with food or 
arms for the Brit-ish troops shut up in Bos-ton. A 
man by the name of I-saac Sears, at a pub-lie meet- 
ing, urged ev-er-y man to get twen-ty-four rounds 
of am-mu-ni-tion. He was put in jail for his bold 
speech, but the peo-ple soon got him out a-gain. 




MIN-UTI MEN. 




I-SAAC SEARS AD-DRESS-ING THE PEO-PLE. 



3 9 



9 o 



New York. 



The Com-mit-tee of One Hun-dred took con-trol 
of all the arms, and for-bade the sale of them to per- 
sons not known to side with the col-o-msts. 

With a view to what might come, it was thought 
best to make sure of the points by which troops and 




RU-INS OF FORT AT CROWN POINT. 



pro-vi-sions for the roy-al ar-my could be brought 
in-to the conn-try from Can-a-da. 

Ti-con-de-ro-ga which had once be-fore played 
an im-por-tant part in the his-to-ry of New York, 
must be se-cured in the first place. May 9, 1775, 
eigh-ty-one Green Moun-tain boys and men from 



The First Shot. 91 

Mass-a-chu-setts crossed Lake Cham-plain, un-der 
the gui-dance of E-than Al-len ; and rush-ing in-to 
the fort, with an In-dian war-whoop, de-mand-ed it 
to be giv-en up. When asked in whose name he 
made this bold de-mand, he said : "In the name of 
the great Je-ho-vah and the Con-ti-nen-tal Con- 
gress." Ti-con-de-ro-ga was giv-en up to him. 
Crown Point was next ta-ken by Col-o-nel War-ner, 
and the A-mer-i-cans soon held the keys to all the 
coun-try be-yond Lake Cham-plain. 

The co-lo-ni-al Gov-er-nor of New York at that 
time, was named Try-on. He was in Eng-land 
when the bat-tie of Lex-ing-ton was fought, and on 
his re-turn was so a-larmed at the looks of things in 
the Col-o-ny, that he took shel-ter on board a ship in 
the bay where he took up his a-bode. 

When the fact that the troub-les be-tween the 
moth-er coun-try and them-selves could on-ly be 
set-tied by war was es-tab-lished in the Col-o-nies, 
George Wash-ing-ton, of Vir-gin-ia, was put at the 
head of the co-lo-ni-al troops. Phil-ip Schuy-ler, of 
New York, was made Ma-jor-Gen-er-al, and Rich- 
ard Mont-gom-er-y Brig-a-dier-Gen-er-al. You will 
see, af-ter a while, what a wise choice of lead-ers this 
was. 

The his-to-ry of the U-nit-ed States real-ly be- 
gins with that fight at Lex-ing-ton. For more than 




■ TSS^':V 




9 2 



THE PAL-I-SADES, ON THE HUD-SON. 



llic War in New York. 93 

a year, though, af-ter it was fought, the Col-o-nies 
still called them-selves sub-jects of the king of Eng- 
land — sub-jects in noth-ing but name, they be-gan 
to think, when they found that all their just re-quests 
were met with harsh scorn. 

The sec-ond Con-ti-nemtal Con-gress met at Phil- 
a-del-phi-a, May 10, 1775. The first one had met 
just to ex-press the views of the Col-o-nies a-bout the 
way Eng-land had treat-ed them, and to pass some 
res-o-lu-tions. This one met to make laws for gov- 
ern-ing the Col-o-nies ; and, as the King re-fused to 
gov-ern them with the help of their own Con-gress, 
they de-cid-ecl to be gov-erned by their Con-gress 
with-out the King's help. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE WAR IN NEW YORK. 

It was not long af-ter the news of that out-break 
at Lex-ing-ton reached Eng-land, that three Gen-er- 
als, Howe, Chn-ton, and Bur-goyne, were sent o-ver 
with fresh troops to add to the roy-al force al-read-y 
shut up in Bos-ton, under com-mand of Gen-er-al 
Gage. With these fresh troops his force reached 
ten thou-sand men. 



94 



New York. 



A-bout twice that man-y A-mer-i-cans, new to 
arms, poor-ly pre-pared in an-y way to op-pose them, 
lay a-round the point of land on which Bos-ton was 
built. 

These men made up their minds to seize and to 
hold one of two or three hills, which would give 
them con-trol of the ci-tv in-to which King Georges 
well-fed, well-dressed, and well-drilled troops had 
been driv-en by a lot of raw pa-tri-ot troops. 

• To this end one thou-sand men were sent out 
one night un-der a Col-o-nel Pres-cott to throw- 
up earth-works on Bun-ker 1 1 ill, which had been 
chos-en for the fort. Throw-ing up earth-works was 
just to the hand of the A-mer-i-can sol-diers, a good 
man-y of whom were farm-ers, and had nev-er worked 
with an-y-thing more dan-srer-ous than a shov-el or a 
spade. 

All night long the pa-tri-ots worked like beav-ers. 
On the morn-ing of June 17, 1775, the roy-al troops 
in Bos-ton o-pened their eyes to the a-maz-ing sight 
ol long lines of earth-works on the hill which 
o-ver-looked their camp, and saw be-hind them the 
larm-er sol-diers still hard at work, mak-ing their fort 
strong-er each mo-ment. 

Three thou-sand of those roy-al troops, men who 
had nev-er known what it was to be beat-en in an 
e-ven fight, were sent out to climb that hill, and 



The War iu New York. 95 

scat-ter those bold pa-tri-ots to the four winds. 
Those of the Bnt-ish who did not <go out to re-take 
Bun-ker Hill, crowd-ed the roofs and win-dows to 
see the fun. Of course, it could not last long. The 
pa-tri-ots would fire a few shots and run. 

That was what the peo-ple in Bos-ton looked to 
see. What they did see, was that fine line of the 
Kings reg-u-lar troops march up the hill, un-til they 
were with-in one hun-dred and fif-ty feet of the fort, 
be-hind which the pa-tn-ot sol-diers stood grim and 
mute. At a word, a sheet of fire flashed from be- 
hind the earth-works. When the smoke that fol- 
lowed that flash cleared a-way, some of the rov-al 
troops were ly-ing dead, some were hurt and bleed- 
ing, and the rest were run-nine back down the hill 
at a ver-y brisk gait. 

Three times the King's well-drilled troops 
marched up that hill be-fore they gained an-y ad- 
vantage o-ver the brave men be-hind those earth- 
works. The third time they gained the fort. The 
pow-der of the co-lo-m-al troops was all gone, and 
they had fought with gun-stocks and stones un-til 
they were ex-haust-ed, and had to yield. 

This, the bat-tie of Bun-ker Hill, the first pitched 
bat-tie of the war, be-longs to the his-to-ry of all those 
Col-o-nies who were try-ing to teach a les-son of 
wis-dom to their moth-er coun-trv. The A-mer-i- 



9 6 



New York. 



& 



cans lost, at the bat-tie of Bun-ker Hill, four hun- 
dred and for-ty-nine out of fif-teen hun-dred men. 
The roy-al troops lost a full third of their num-ber. 
Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton soon came to take com- 
mand of the pa-tri-ots 
who had col-lect-ed 
a-bout Bos-ton to re-sist 
the roy-al troops ; and 
then and there he-ran 
the ver-y hard task of 
\ form-ing a real ar-my, 
with which to cope with 
Eng-lands great force, 
out of men who had no 
l-de-a of camp life, who 
were not will-ins to 
leave their homes and 
their farm work for an-y 
length of time, and who 
were so much in love 
with the l-de-a of man- 




CL^^^i^/-C^ 



tl 



ai>'-ini>" tneir own ai-iairs 



f-fa 



of <? 



TOT' 



"^ that the}' could hard-ly 
be brought to see the 
stern ne-ces-si-ty for strict mil-i-ta-ry dis-ci-pline e-ven 
at such a grave time. 

A man less tru-ly great than George Wash- 




THE WASH-ING-TON ELM. 



57 



9 8 New York 

ing-ton would have giv-en the task up in de-spair. 
When he had got-ten this raw ma-te-n-al in -to good 
fight-ing trim, he made read-y to do what the he-roes 
of Bun-ker Hill had tried to do — get com-mand of 
Bos-ton by for-ti-fy-ing Dor-ches-ter Heights, which 
he seized by night. 

Gen-er-al Gage had been suc-ceed-ed by Gen-er-al 
Howe as com-man-der of the King's troops. W hen 
he saw what Wash-ing-ton had done in the nii>ht he 
de-cid-ed to leave Bos-ton rath-er than at-tack the 
ver-y strong for-ti-fi-ca-tions on Dor-ches-ter Heights 
He or-dered his men on board the fleet, and set sail 
for Hal-i-fax. The A-mer-i-can ar-mv en-tered the 
town of Bos-ton in tri-umph. 

Fort Ti-con-de-ro-ga, as you know, had been 
ta-ken from the Bnt-ish by some Ver-mont men 
un-der E-than Al-len ; but this did not give the 
Col-o-nies that en-tire con-trol o-ver Can-a-da, which 
it was mi-port-ant they should have. 

Dur-ing the sum-mer of 1775 the two New York 
of-fi-cers who had been giv-en such prom-i-nent po- 
sitions in the A-mer-i-can ar-my, Schuy-ler and 
Mont-gom-er-y, un-der-took the in-va-sion of Can- 
a-da. On the call for troops by the Con-ti-nen-tal 
Con-gress, New York's share had been put at three 
thou-sand men, who were read-y to be used where- 
ev-er most need-ed. 



The J I ar in New York. 



99 



Schuy-ler and Mont-gom-er-y pushed with a 
large pro-por-tion of these troops in-to Can-a-da. 
They took Mon-tre-al, 
where Ben-e-dict Ar-nold 
joined them with fresh 
troops ; but when, with 
their force of one thou- 
sand men, they at-tacked 
Que-bec, it was found 
to be too strong for 
them. 

The brave A-mer- 
i-can Gen-er-al ' Mont- 
gom-er-y, lost his life in 
this at-tempt. His re- 
mains were brought to 
New York Ci-ty in 1 8 1 8, 
and bur-ied with mil-i- 
ta-ry hon-ors. In the 
rear wall of the old-est 
church build-ing in New 
York Ci-ty you may see 
a tab-let to this brave 
man's mem-o-ry. (St. 
Paul's Church, on Broad- 
way, New York.) 

This fail-ure to take Que-bec set-tied the fate of 




MONT-GOM-ER-Y S MON-U-MENT. 



ioo New York. 

Can-a-da, which has re-mained at-tached to the Brit- 
ish crown from that day to this. 

You sec in this con-test with Eng-land the Col- 
o-nies had a great stretch of conn-try to pro-tect, 
which was a hard thine to do with their scat-tered 
forc-es. But af-ter the bat-tie of Bun-ker 1 1 ill, and 
the fail-ure to oc-cu-py Can-a-da, the line of war-fare 
was drawn tight-er and clos-er, un-til it be-came cer- 
tain that the real strug-gle was to be fought m the 
Mid-die States, which bore the brunt of it be-tween 
the years 1776 and 1778. 

It was not un-til the col-o-nists were forced to see 
that the Eng-lish Par-lia-ment in-tend-ed to act with 
the King a-gainst them in all things, that they took 
the fi-nal bold step known as the Dec-la-ra-tion of 
In-de-pen-dence. 

This dec-la-ra-tion was made on the 4th of 
Ju-ly, 1776, and the news of it was sent at once 
to the State Con-ven-tion ot New York, then 
be-ing held at White Plains. The mem-bers made 
haste to give it their most heart-felt ap-prov-al, 
and to de-clare that they were read-y to risk their 
lives, and to i^'ive free-lv of their means in sup-port 
of it. 

It was now to be ex-pect-ed that both sides 
would stop talk-ing of, or hop-ing for, an-y heal-ing of 
the breach, and pro-ceed to prove which was in the 



The ]]\tr in New York. 



101 



right by the strength of arms a-lone, which was the 
case. 

Af-ter their de-feat at Bos-ton, the Brit-ish made 
no fresh at-tempts in New Eng-land. The cli-mate 
was too cold and storm-y. New York of-fered 
them a much bet-ter point of at-tack ; be-sides which 




HOWES HEAD-QUAR-TERS. 



they thought they would get aid in that State from 
the To-ries : these were the rich men a-bout New 
York who sid-ed with the King, more from fear of 
los-ing their wealth, than be-cause they thought the 



102 



New York. 



King was right in treat-ing the A-mer-i-cans as he 

did. 

It was deemed of great im-por-tance that New- 
York should be put in a po-si-tion for de-fence. 
Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton made haste to bring troops 
to that point as soon as he could spare them from 
Bos-ton. lie had in all twen-ty thou-sand men- 
brave and res-o-lute men — but much had to be done 
for and with such an arm-y be-fore the}' could meet 
the fin-est troops in the world in the o-pen fields. 
Some hard blows were struck the co-lo ni-al troops 
be-fore they came to be-lieve in them-selves. 

The roy-al force of a-bout twen-ty-four thou-sand 
men was un-der com-mand of Lord Howe and his 
broth-er, Sir Wil-liam Howe. Then troops had 
been brought back from Hal-i-fax and en-camped on 
Stat-en Isl-and. 

The A-mer-i-cans were en-camped on Long Isl- 
and, near Brook-lyn, which was at that time no 
more than a small fer-ry sta-tion. 

On the 27th day of Au-gust, 1776, Lord Howe 
came o-ver from Stat-en Isl-and with a-bout half his 
strong force, and sur-round-ed five thou-sand of the 
pa-tri-ots who had been placed as a sort of out-post 
near Brook-lyn. He de-feat-ed them com-plete-ly. 
On-lv three thou-sand of them ev-er got back to the 
fort at Brook-lyn. This, the bat-tie of Long Isl-and, 




A RED-COAT STAND-ING ON GUARD. 



104 New York. 

did not tend to raise the spir-its of the A-mer-i-cans, 
you may de-pend. 

While Lord Howe was try-ing to make up his 
mind, wheth-er he ought to fol-low up this vic-to-ry 
by an at-tack on the fort it-self, Gen-er-al \\ ash- 
ing-ton was qui-et-ly mov-ing his troops o-ver the 
East Riv-er in-to New York Ci-ty. He was aid-ed 
in this big task by a thick fog, which lay on the riv- 
er and hid his move-ments. It was not un-til the 
sun came up to melt this fog that Lord Howe knew 
what had he-come ol the foe he meant to have 
cap-tured. 

He went af-ter them to New York. Gen-er-al 
Wash-ing-ton was too wise to trust his raw troops in 
an o-pen fight with Lord Howe's well-dis-ci-phned 
ar-my. Once more he with-drew he-lore the Brit- 
ish, tak-ing his force as far as Har-lem, and leav-ing 
New York Ci-ty in the hands of the Brit-ish, who 
held it un-til peace was made be-tween the two 
coun-tnes. 

As soon as Lord Howe en-tercd the ci-ty, he 
sent a fleet up the Hud-son Riv-er to cut off sup- 
plies from the A-mer-i-can troops. LI is ships had 
no troub-le as-cend-ing the riv-er, al-though for weeks 
past ef-forts had been made to ob-struct the chan-nel 
to pre-vent this ver-y dan-ger. 

Be-fore fall-in<>" hack once more be-fore the 



The War in New York. 



105 



en-e-my, the A-mer-i-cans had a sharp but short en- 
count-er with them, which end-ed bad-ly for the 
roy-al troops. It was an ir-reg-u-lar sort of bat-tie, 
but Mrs. Lamb, in her full his-to-ry of New York, 
which I hope you will all read some day, calls 
it, " one of the most bnl-liant and im-por-tant of 



■ \ m-4 wk '*-'-*■ 




WASH-ING-TON S HEAD-QUAR-TERS. 



an-y fought in the Rev-o-lu-tion-a-ry War in its re- 
sults." 

I sup- pose that is be-cause the bat-tie of Har-lem 
Heights was fought when the A-mer-i-cans were 
gloom-y and dis-cour-agecl on ac-count of re-peat-ed 
re-treats and dis-as-ters. 



ic6 



New York. 



Mrs. Lamb de-scribes this af-fair ver-y ful-ly : — 
"They fought in scouts and squads, in bat-tal-ions 
and in bri-gades. . . . They fought in the woods, 




% ; 









■ 








! 



B \T- III: I IF II VR-LEM HEIGHTS. 



from be-hind trees, bush-es, rocks, and fenc-es, and 
they fought on the plain and in the road. . . . The 
suc-cess of this day turned the cur-rent of e-vents. 



The War in New York. 107 

Hence-forth the A-mer-i-cans be-lieved in them- 
selves." 

But in spite of this spark of en-cour-age-ment the 
A-mer-i-can Gen-er-al was forced to go still farth-er 
a-way from the ci-ty, in or-der to pre-vent Lord 
Howe from cut-ting off his sup-plies. He fell back 
to White Plains this time. There an-oth-er sharp 
en-count-er took place. In this bat-tie the A-mer- 
i-cans lost near-ly four hun-dred men, and were once 
more worst-ed. 

There was noth-ing for it but to fall back, and to 
keep fall-ing back be-fore Lord Howe, whose troops, 
su-pe-n-or in num-ber and flushed with suc-cess, 
were furth-er helped on by trai-tors to the A-mer- 
i-can cause. Wash-ing-ton fell back un-til he got to 
the hills east of where now stands the town of Peeks- 
kill. There he turned and stood at bay with his 
brave but dis-cour-aged men. 

Lord Howe, who seems nev-er to have been 
quite sure of what he did want to do, moved off in 
the di-rec-tion of New Jer-sey, tak-ing, on his way 
back, three hun-dred men whom Wash-ing-ton had 
left in Fort Wash-ing-ton, while Gen-er-al Wash- 
ing-ton was cross-ing his troops o-ver in-to Jer-sey, 
op-po-site Peeks-kill. 

By this stroke the Brit-ish for a while got com- 
plete con-trol of Man-hat-tan Isl-and, and the King's 



- 

- 



■ 
:: : 







FORT LEE. 



Burgoynes Expedition. 109 

ships could go up and down the Hud-son Riv-er, the 
East Riv-er, and the Bay, with no one to say them 
nay. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BURGOYNES EXPEDITION. 

While Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton in the south-ern 
part of the State had been fall-ing back with his raw 
troops from place to place be-fore Lord Howe's 
splen-did ar-my, un-til he brought up a-cross the 
riv-er, in New Jer-sey, things were go-ing some-what 
bet-ter with the A-mer-i-can sol-diers in the north- 
ern part of New York. 

The Brit-ish com-man-ders had laid out a plan 
of ac-tion in that di-rec-tion which would have 
brought a-bout great things for them, if they could 
on-ly have car-ried it out. This plan was to cut the 
New Eng-land States off from New York, so that 
the Col-o-nies, thus pre-vent-ed from giv-ing each 
oth-er help of an-y sort, could soon be brought to 
terms. To do this, the King's troops must gain 
en-tire con-trol of the great wa-ter way made by 
Lakes Cham-plain and George, and the Hud-son 
Riv-er. It was a bright scheme. 




SOME OF ST.-LE-GEk's IN-DIAN TROOPS. 



Burgoyne s Expedition. 1 1 1 

Lord Howe was to go up the Hud-son Riv-er 
to keep it free from such pa-tri-ot troops as might try 
to cross to aid the ar-my in the North. A Col-o-nel 
St.-Le-ger, with a large force of In-dians and To-ries 
(To-ries were the men of A-mer-i-ca who took part 
with the King a-gainst the col-o-nists), was to go up 
the St. Law-rence Riv-er, and come down in-to New 
York by way of the Mo-hawk Riv-er, while Gen-er-al 
Bur-goyne, with an ar-my of sev-en thou-sand men 
was to go down the Hud-son to-wards Al-ba-ny, 
where he was to be joined by Gen-er-al Clin-ton, 
with roy-al troops from New York Ci-ty. 

The pa-tri-ot ar-my in the north-ern part of the 
State was un-der Gen-er-al Schuy-ler. He had but 
four thou-sand men with which to meet Bur-goyne's 
ar-my of Brit-ish sol-diers, Ca-na-dians, and In-dians. 
This was the first time in the War of the Rev-o-lu- 
tion that sav-ag-es had been used as reg-u-lar troops, 
and the A-mer-i-cans, who knew on-ly too well what 
cru-el and un-ru-ly foes they were, were much in- 
censed at the Brit-ish for us-in£ them. 

At first things went so smooth-ly with Gen-er-al 
Bur-goyne that his troops were in the best of spir-its. 

When he reached Ti-con-de-ro-ga, one of the 
strong forts on Lake Cham-plain, the A-mer-i-can 
Gen-er-al (St. Clair) left it with-out strik-ing a blow, 
and took his small force to in-crease Gen-er-al Schuy- 



Biirgoynes Expedition. i r 3 

ler's small force at Fort Eel-ward. Gen-er-al Schuy- 
ler, with his four thou-sand men, thought it most 
pru-dent to re-treat be-fore Bur-goyne's ar-my of ten 
thou-sand, but in do-ing so tried to hurt his en-e-mies 
as much, al-most, as if he had met them in o-pen 
bat-tie. 

The A-mer-i-cans knew ev-er-y foot of the ground 
o-ver which they had to re-treat. As they went, 
they cut down trees, so that they should fall a-cross 
the road ; they set fire to bridg-es as soon as they 
had gone o-ver them them-selves, and af-ter hav-ing 
done all they could do to har-ass the foe, they took 
up their stand near the mouth of the Mo-hawk 
Riv-er, where it flows in-to the Hud-son. Here 
Gen-er-al Schuy-ler came to a halt to wait for fresh 
troops. 

Bur-goyne came slow-ly on his trail. He found 
this a hard thing to do in view of the work Schuy- 
ler's men had done to ob-struct his march. The 
King's troops had to tramp through dense woods 
and deep swamps, where no food could be got for 
love or Pfold. 

They had to take their sup-plies a-long with 
them. This march was a wear-ing one to the men ; 
and when Bur-goyne at last came in sight of Schuy- 
ler once more, he found him-self too weak to at-tack 
him. 




ii4 



SCENE OX LAKE GEORGE. 



Burgoyne s Expedition. 1 1 5 

He, too, came to a halt to rest his men and to 
look a-bout him for food, of which his ar-my be-gan 
to stand in sore need. 

The A-mer-i-cans had some sup-plies stored at 
Ben-ning-ton. Bur-goyne sent some men to try to 
take them. They were beat-en back with great loss. 
They met with a still worse fate when they made a 
move on Fort Schuy-ler. The A-mer-i-cans held 
out un-til Gen-er-al Ar-nold came to their aid with 
fresh troops, and drove Bur-goyne' s men back in a 
pan-ic. 

These two suc-cess-es gave the pa-tri-ot troops 
fresh cour-age, and cheered them in more ways than 
one. The peo-ple of the coun-try a-round, who had 
been stay-ing at home in gloom-y dis-trust of them, 
now be-oran to flock to their aid. Thev be-£an to 
think it pos-si-ble to drive the rov-al troops back, and 
were read-y to take up arms in the at-tempt. 

Ev-er-y man be-tween six-teen and six-ty years of 
age was urged to take up arms in de-fence of his 
home, and to help the brave troops who had made 
such head-way a-gainst the King's strong forc-es. 
They had been slow to move, those stur-dy farm-ers 
of the Mo-hawk Val-ley, but they made a strong 
force when they did move. 

By this time, the Brit-ish com-mand-ers found 
them-selves in grave troub-le. Man-y of Gen-er-al 



1 1 6 New York. 

Bur-goyne's best men had been killed ; his ar-my 
was in want of food, the In-dians not on-ly left him, 
hut, in their sav-age rage at the had turn ai-fairs took, 
did as much harm to his own troops as lay in their 
pow-er. 

Bur-goyne saw that while he was los-ing strength 
ev-er-\ day, his foes were gain-ing it. Con-gress 
was send-ing troops up the Hud-son, and the ar-my 
op-posed to him was in-creas-ing day by day. The 
troops which were to have been sent from New 
York to his aid did not come. There was but one 
chance left him. If he could cross the Hud-son 
and force his way through the A-mer-i-can ar-my, 
he might vet get to New York with his worn and 
hun-gry men. 

He crossed the Hud-son, and took his slow way 
a-long its west hank to-wards the plains of Sar-a-to-ga, 
where he pitched his camp. 

A-bout this time Gen-er-al Schuy-ler was re- 
moved from the com-mand of the pa-tri-ot forc-es to 
give place to Gen-er-al (kites, who came in-to pow-er 
just in time to reap the glo-ry he had no just part in. 

The two ar-mies came face to face at a place 
called Be-mis Heights, a point on the road from the 
1 lud-son Riv-er to Sa-ra-to-ga Lake, and had a fight 
whieh no one- could call a vic-to-ry. The Brit-ish 
held their ground, but the A-mer-i-cans showed 



1 1 S New York. 

them they could not force their way through, which 
was the one thing they want-ed to do. 

Bu-reoyne tried it a-gain — a ht-tle south of 
Be-mis Heights this time. Here he was bad-ly 
beat-en. lie now tried to turn a-bout and go hack 
to Can-a-da. But he was like a mouse in a trap. 
The A-mer-i-cans were on all sides of him. 1 here 
was noth-ing left hut sur-ren-der. At Sa-ra-to-go, 
on the 17th of Oc-to-ber, 1777, Gen-er-al Bur-goyne 
gave up his sword to Gen-er-al Gates, and with it 
lus ar-my of six thou-sand men. Gen-er-al Gates 
gave his sword hack to him, and made ea-sv terms 
lor the pris-on-ers of war. 

Thus end-ed the plan the Brit-ish had laid to cut 
the A-mer-i-can Col-o-nies in-to two parts ; hut these 
brave deeds on the soil of New \ ork led to still 
great-er re-sults than de-feat-ing tins plan. France, 
be-liev-ing that by her aid, those strug-<>im<>' Col-o- 
mes might yet throw off the yoke of Eng-land, re- 
solved to help them. 

But of that 1 will tell you in the next chap-ter. 
We are not vet through with the troub-les in New 
\ ork State. 

Bur-goyne's sur-ren-der did not end the war by 
an-y means ; and New York, of all the Col-o-nies, 
had the most to con-tend with at that time. 1 ler 
chief town was the head-quar-ters of the Brit-ish 



Bu i 'goynes Expedition. 



119 



ar-my, from which point they could keep con-trol of 
Long Isl-and, the Bay, and the low-er Hud-son, 




WAR DANCE. 



The Six Na-tions, who had at one time been the best 



1 20 New York. 

sort of friends to the 'col-o-nists, had been stirred 
to bit-ter ha-tred of them. by Sir John John-son, 
a To-ry, and the Mo-hawk chief, Jo-seph Brandt. 
Since the Brit-ish had seen fit to use these blood- 
thirst-y sav-ag-es in their ar-my, it be-came need-ful 
that the A-mer-i-cans should strike such ter-ror m-to 
their hearts that they would not be so will-ing to 
take up arms a-gainst them at an-y fu-ture call. 

At the out-set of the strife the In-dians had 
prom-ised to take no part in the war ; but a-mong 
oth-er things the white men had taught them, they 
had learned to be greed-y of gam. ^ ou will not 
have for-got-ten how the ear-ly set-tiers, both Eng- 
lish and French, had made use of these bar-ba-rous 
war-riors. 

Af-ter their ha-tred for the pa-tri-ots had been 
nursed in-to a fierce flame by the Tories, the peo-ple 
in all the small out-ly-ing towns were in dan-eer 
of their lives at all times. The To-ries had no 
sense of hon-or. 

Church-es, mills, barns, and hous-es wen- burned, 
and, on some oc-ca-sions, the most shock-ing deeds 
ot blood were com-mit-ted. No one knew when or 
where they would strike next. 

Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton sent out a force to break 
their pow-er. These forc-es were com-mand-ed 1>\ 
Gen-er-als Sul-li-van and James Clin-ton. They 




JO-SEPH BRANDT 



122 New York. 

struck tell-incr blows at the To-ries and at the Red 

men. 

They went in-to the coun-try a-bout Sen-e-ca and 
Ca-yu-ga Lakes bent on the work of pun-ish-ment 
and de-struc-tion. They laid waste or-chards and 
corn-fields, set fire to whole vil-la-gres, and, wher-ev-er 
they could find a To-rv or an In-dian pun-ished 
them se-vere-ly. 

At New-town (near El-mi-ra) they met Brandt, 
the Mo-hawk chief, with John-son the To-rv, who 
had col-lect-ed eight hun-dred In-dians and To-ries 
to op-pose them. The A-mer-i-cans put them to 
flight ea-si-lv. But they could not put to flight the 
spir-it of treach-er-y that lurked in the To-ry breast. 

In this way all through the War of the Rev-o-lu- 
tion, New York had more to con-tend with from 
foes with-in her own bor-ders than an-y of the oth-er 
Col-o-nies. The pow-er-ful Red men, who had been 
shorn of their homes and fields, be-came lurk-ing, 
sneak-ing foes, who struck when-ev-er they could 
with-out dan-ger to them-selves, while the To-ries 
were all the time on the a-lert to aid the King's 
forc-es, e-ven when not fight-ing o-pen-ly in the 
ranks of the roy-al troops. 

It seems odd to read that, in the midst of all 
these stir-ring scenes, when men's lives were at 
stake and their homes at the mer-cv of each day's 




LURK-ING RED MEN. 



124 New York. 

e-vents, the men of New York found time to at-tend 
to the work oi form-ing a State Gov-ern-ment. 

Ev-er since they had thrown off King George's 
yoke, they had been un-der the con-trol ol the State 
Con-ven-tion and of the " Com-mit-tee oi One Hun- 
dred," or "Coun-cil of Safe-ty," as some wnt-ers call 
it. Ear-ly in the year 1777, del-e-gates e-lect-ed for 
the pur-pose were sent to Kings-ton to form and 
a-dopt a State Con-sti-tu-tion. At this con-ven-tion 
it was a-greed that the "free-hold-ers" of the State 
should have the e-lec-tion of the States of-fi-cials. 
And soon af-ter this the free-hold-ers e-lect-ed George 
Clin-ton to the of-fice of Gov-er-nor. 

Clin-ton was the first Gov-er-nor the peo-ple of 
New York had e-lect-ed for them-selves. 



CHAPTER X. 

CLOSE OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

Ii I were to stop to write of all the brave deeds 
and the stir-ring e-vents that took place in New 
York State, while that fierce fight for their rights 
was be-ing fought by the col-o-nists, I fear we 
should nev-er <4"et past those days, writ-er or read-er. 



126 New York. 

As it is, we must make haste to the close of this 
war. 

The Trench were not sor-ry to see the col-o-nists 
make such strong head-way a-gainst the King's 
forc-es. There was no love lost be-tween France 
and Ensr-land at that time. France had been slow 
to come to tiie aid of the A-mer-i-cans, be-cause she 
thought the troops she might send o-ver, would have 
to do all the fight-ing: and she was not sure that it 
would be worth her while to take an-y part in the 
quar-rel. The de-feat of Gen-er-al Bur-goyne made 
her change her views, and soon af-ter that e-vent 
France formed a trea-ty with the " U-nit-ed States 
of A-mer-i-ca." This was what Ben-ja-min Frank- 
lin had been try-ing to bring a-bout for two or three 
years. He had been sent to Par-is for that pur-pose. 

By thus trea-ty France a-greed to send o-ver a 
fleet of six-teen war ships with four thou-sand men 
un-der one of her own Gen-er-als— D'Es-taingf. 
^ ou may de-pend this was good news for the 
A-mer-i-cans. 

One re-sult of this trea-ty was to scare Great 
Brit-ain in-to of-fer*ing the Col-o-nies all they had 
plead lor in vain, three years be-fore. But it was 
too late now to tell them they need pay no tax-es ; 
they were get-ting in-to po-si-tion to make their own 
terms. 



Close of tJie War for Independence. 127 

Lord Howe had been re-moved from com-mand 
of the Brit-ish troops, and Sir Hen-ry Clin-ton put 
in his place. You know when Wash-ing-ton had 
re-treat-ed be-fore Howe he had gone back and back 
o-ver in-to New Jer-sev, then south-ward a-cross the 
Del-a-ware, draw-ing the foe af-ter him. 

Both ar-mies had done lit-tle dur-ing the win-ter. 
Howe went in-to win-ter quar-ters at Phil-a-del-phi-a, 
and Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton at Val-ley Forge, where 
he could keep his eye on him. 

The news of the trea-ty with France sent Sir 
Hen-ry Clin-ton back to-wards New York Ci-ty in a 
great fright. He was bent on get-ting the roy-al 
forc-es safe in that strong-hold be-fore the French 
fleet should sail up the bay and cut him off. 

Wash-ing-ton broke up his win-ter camp and 
moved north-ward at the same time. He, too, 
thought the French fleet would sail straight for 
New York Ci-ty, and his plan was to keep Clin-ton 
fight-ing in New Jer-sey un-til the French could cut 
him off from New York. 

In this he did not suc-ceed. Clin-ton was soon 
once more snug-ly fixed in the ci-ty, where his men 
were quar-tered in the homes of the col-o-nists, who 
were shut out from them un-til peace came a-gain. 

Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton moved up the riv-er and 
took up his old stand at Peeks-kill. From there he 



128 New York. 

could watch Clin-ton and keep him shut up in the 
ci-ty, while he sent troop af-ter troop off to help on 
the war in the South, where the most ol the fight-ing 
was done to-wards the close. 

In point of fact, ver-y ht-tle fight-ing was done in 
New York af-ter Bur-goyne's sur-ren-der. The 
Brit-ish seemed to hope more from car-ry-ing the 
war m-to the South. They did not yet re-al-ize 
that one spir-it nerved ev-er-y A-mer-i-can arm, 
North, South, and East. 

\\ hen the French fleet did fi-nal-ly reach the 
bay, it was found that her big men-of-war could not 
get m-to the har-bor; so it sailed a-way, with a view 
to take New-port from the Brit-ish. A storm drove 
them off that coast, so they turned a-bout and sailed 
for the West In-dies to look af-ter the French pos- 
sessions die re. 

Dur-ing the year 1 7 So the A-mer-i-cans came 
ver-y near be-ing bad-ly hurt through the wick-ed 
treach-er-y of a man who had been one of her brav- 
est and most trust-ed of-fi-cers. Gen-er-al Ar-nold, 
who, you will ree-ol-lect, had fought so well at Que- 
bec, and a-gain, when Bur-goyne was try-ing to take 
Fort Schuy-ler had done good work in the A-mer- 
i-can cause. 

Gen-er-al Ar-nold had asked to he put in com- 
mand at \\ est Point, one of the most im-por-tant 



130 New York. 

posts the A-mer-i-cans held, as it com-mand-ed the 

id-son Riv-er. 

No soon-er was the con-trol of this post giv-en to 
him, than he be-gan to plot with the Brit-ish for its 
de-liv-er-y to them. In or-der to car-ry on a cor-re- 
spon-dence with him for this pur-pose, the Brit-ish 
sent a ship called the "Vult-ure" up the Hud-son, 
as near to West Point as she dared <>o. 

On the night of Sep-tem-ber 21st, Ar-nold was 
to meet the a-gent of the Brit-ish at the beach, to 
com-plete his act of treach-er-y. 

The Brit-ish sent a splen-did young of-fi-cer 
named An-dre on this dan-ger-ous er-rand. He 
and Ar-nold stayed so lone ar-ranef-insf mat-ters that 
night, that he did not dare go back to the "Vult- 
ure," but lay hid-den with-in the A-mer-i-can lines all 
the next daw Dur-ing the day some-thing fright- 
ened the " \ ult-ure" from her po-si-tion in the riv-er, 
and there was no way left for Ma-jor An-dre to get 
back to the ci-tv of New York, but by land. 

Ar-nold gave him a pass; and he, call-ing him- 
self An-der-son, start-ed for New York by land, 
bear-ing hid on his per-son the pa-pers which were 
to give the fort of \\ est Point in-to Sir Hen-ry 
Clin-ton's hands. 

At Tar-ry-town, thir-tv miles from New York, 
three A-mer-i-can sol-diers, by name John Pauld-ing, 




CAP-TURE OF AN-DRE. 



132 New York. 

Da-vid Wil-liams, and I -sane Van Wart met him, 
and asked for his pass. He gave it and they let 
him pass on. 

We can well im-ag-ine how the poor fel-low's 
heart must have leaped for joy when they gave him 
back his pass, and told him he could go on his way. 
And we can al-so well im-ag-ine how it must have 
sunk with-in him when the men called him hack, 
and be-gan to ask him some more ques-tions. He 
asked them where they were from ; and when they 
said "from be-low," he, think-ing the}' meant New 
York, and that, af-ter all they were his friends, said : 
" So am I." 

They took him in charge at once. \\ hen An- 
dre saw that he had made a mis-take he told them 
that he was a Brit-ish of-fi-cer, and tried to bribe 
them with his watch and some <>'old to let him go on 
his way; but poor as they were, they did not care as 
much for his gold and his watch, as the}' did tor 
their own good names and the snie-tv of A-mer-i-ca. 
They pro-ceed-ed to search him. 

In his boots they found the pa-pers in which 
Ben-e-dict Ar-nold had giv-en mi-nute di-rec-tions to 
the Brit-ish for tak-ing West Point. They took him 
to the of-fi-cer in com-mand of the A-mer-i-can out- 
posts, where the ill-fat-ed young man was put un-der 
a r- rest as a spy. 



Close of the War for Independence. 133 

Ar-nold got wind of his ar-rest in time to es- 
cape to the Brit-ish on board the "Vult-ure." The 
A-mer-i-cans would have glad-ly ex-changed An-dre's 
per-son for that of Ar-nold the trai-tor, who had gone 




ar-nold's es-cape to the "vult-ure.' 



to the en-e-my, but this the Brit-ish would not hear 
to. An-dre was hung for a spy. 

Ar-nold served out the rest of the war in the 
Brit-ish ar-my, while years af-ter the three sol-diers 



, ,4 New York. 



who had saved A-mer-i-ca from the ter-ri-ble blow 
planned be-tween Ar-nold and An-dre were hon- 
ored by a hand-some mon-u-ment, which you may 
see at an-y time by driv-ing a ht-tle way out of the 
pret-ty town of Tar-ry-town. 

The scope of this hook does not take in the 
stir-ring times that came with the close of the war in 
the South. It was at York-town, in the State ol 
Vir-gin-ia, that the fi-nal blow was struck at the 
Kind's foroes. 

Wash-ing-ton, ear-ly in 17X1, be-gan a se-ries of 
moves a-round New \ ork, which threw Sir Hen-ry 
Clin-ton in-to a great fright, think-ing he was to be 
at-tacked ; but on learn-ing that fresh troops had 
come from France, and would soon en-ter the Ches- 
a-peake Bay, Gen-er-al Wash-ing-ton changed his 
plans, and at once went South to at-tend to al-fairs 
in per-son. He had been gone some davs, be-fore 
Clm-ton (look-ing hour-ly for the at-tack on New 
York Ci-ty), knew an-y-thing a-bout it. 

Lord Corn-wal-lis was in com-mand of the Brit- 
ish ar-my in the South. He found him-self sur- 
round-ed by the French and A-mer-i-can troops. 
Fie was cut off from all hope oi help from Clm-ton, 
in New \ ork; so af-ter three weeks of siege and of 
hard fight-ing he gave up the strug-gle as hope-less. 

Oc-to-ber 19, 1781, Lord Corn-wal-lis sur-ren- 




-:'.f ■•-« '<: V 
i2^ | 




Pi 

< 

c 



136 New York. 



dered his ar-my in an old held near York-town, 
winch act real-ly end-ed the war. 

By this time tin- Eng-lish Gov-ern-ment be-eran 
to think 0} mak-ing terms ol peace with the sub-jects 
she had driv-en from her by harsh-ness, al-though 
King George was for fight-ing on. 

I o bring them to this point, the A-mer-i-cans had 
for eight years en-dured a war which laid waste their 
lands, thinned their num-bers, and brought their com- 
merce to a stand still. 

Ar-ti-cles of peace were signed be-tween the two 
coun-tnes, by men sent to Par-is lor that pur-pose, 
on the 30th of No-vem-ber, [782 ; but it was not 
un-til No-vem-ber 25, 1783, that the men of New 
York had the great joy of see-ing the Brit-ish troops, 
which had all been drawn in-to New York Ci-ty. 
Long Isl-and, and Stat-en Isl-and,.go on board their 
ships and set sail for their homes. 

Im-me-di-ate-lv af-ter the sur-ren-der of Corn- 
wal-lis, the Eng-lish, al-ways will-ing to blame some- 
bod-y for their bad luck, rc-called Sir Hen-rv C din-ton 
and put in his place Sir Guy Carle-ton. Sir Guy 
( arle-ton was a much bet-ter man than Clin-ton, and 
for the short time left be-fore the sign-ing of the 
trea-ty of peace the pco-plc of New York Ci-tv were 
far more kind-ly dealt with. 

Carle-ton had ver-y ht-tle to do but to hnd ways 



Close of the ff r ar for Independence. 



137 



and means of send-ing home twelve thou-sand of 
King George's bad-ly beat-en troops. He asked 
that the A-mer-i-can troops should guard the rear of 
his ar-my while he was em-bark-ing it. As soon as 
the last of the King's sol-diers was fair-ly 
on board, the A-mer-i-cans moved qui- 
et-ly for-ward to the bat-ter-y and took 
pos-ses-sion of the fort. 

New York breathed 
free-ly once more ! Wash- 
ing-ton and his troops were ,OR$ A 




ji^?.,^ ' VM ~^ T §! 



THE E-VAC-U-A-TION. 



wel-comed in-to the ci-ty with loud cries of joy. 
Church-es were re-o-pened. Men came a-gain to 
live in peace in the homes the foe had so long kept 
them out of. The stars and stripes were flung to 



New J ork. 



the breeze from the tall staff on the Ci-ty Hall, and 
fresh life ran through ev-er-y man's veins. 
A-mer-i-ca was free ! 



CHAPTER XL 

PEACE AND GROWTH. 

Al-ex-an-der Ham-il-ton, of New York, one of 
the wise and good men to whom this coiin-try owes 
so much of its ear-ly strength, once said : "A na-tion 
with-out a na-tion-al gov-ern-ment is an aw-ful 
spec-ta-cle." 

That is just what the U-nit-ed States was, at the 
close of the war for in-de-pen-dence ; a brand-new 
na-tion that had thrown off an old yoke, and had no 
new yoke read-y to try on. 

Con-gress had been look-ing af-ter the in-ter-ests 
ol the Col-o-nies while they were bus-y fight-ing. 
No one had ev-er giv-en this right to Con-gress. 
Some one had to do for the time what the King's 
of-fi-cers had been in the hab-it of do-ing ; and no 
doubt the pub-lic af-fairs ol the coun-try were pret-ty 
well or-dered, all things ta-ken in-to ac-count. 

The State of-fi-cers had strong-er hold up-on their 
of-fi-ces. The peo-ple of each State had put its pr-i 



Peace and Growth. 139 

vate af-fairs in-to the hands of men chosen for their 
good names. But Con-oress was an-oth-er thing. 
They o-beyed its or-ders on-ly when they saw fit. 

Of course things colild not go on in this way 
un-less the new States were will-ing to see their pub- 
lic af-fairs get in-to a worse snarl than they had been 
when King George was at the head of them. 

So long as the fear of a com-mon foe kept them 
bound to-geth-er, and they had no time for squab-bles 
o-ver land or debts or small lo-cal ques-tions, this 
some-what loose form of sjov-ern-ment had not been 
so bad. But the time had come when the States 
must have some set of laws which all must o-bey 
a-like, and there must be some one to make them 
o-bey. We, who live to-day un-der the Con-sti-tu- 
tion which has been the ac-cept-ed and hon-ored law 
of the land for near one hun-dred years, can nev-er 
do full jus-tice to the wise men who framed it, nor 
ev-er know what it cost them, to think out a set of 
rules which would meet all the wants of all the new 
States and give of-fence to none. 

The Con-sti-tu-tion could on-ly be-come the law 
of the land by the con-sent of the States. New 
York was one of the States which held out a-gainst 
it at first. Some of the States were a-fraid the new 
Gov-ern-ment would want too much pow-er in its 
own hands; but one af-ter an-oth-er they " rat-i-fied," 




140 



IN-AU-GU-KA- 1 I<>.\ OF WASH-ING-TON. 



Peace and Growth. 141 

as it was called, and in i 79 1 the Con-sti-tu-tion was 
a-dopt-ed. 

George Wash-ing-ton was e-lect-ed the first 
Pres-i-dent, and New York Ci-ty was chosen as the 
seat of the new Gov-ern-ment. The Pres-i-dent was 
sworn in-to of-fice in a house on Wall Street, called 
Fed-er-al Hall. 

In no State of the new Un-ion was peace more 
sore-ly need-ed, or more glad-ly wel-come than in 
New York. 

Some writ-ers claim that in the Mo-hawk Val- 
ley a-lone, one third of the men had lost their lives 
in the war; one third had fled, or been driv-en off, 
so that but one third was left to do the work of re- 
build-ing. Some say there were but one or two 
house-holds left in some of the town-ships. Man-y 
of the new set-tle-ments had been wiped out; but 
with the same force of will and pluck that had just 
car-ried them in tri-umph through a long and cost-ly 
war, they set a-bout the task of build-ing their homes 
a-gain, and mak-ing good their loss-es. 

Those To-ries who had not fled when their 
Brit-ish friends left the coun-try, had rath-er a 
hard time of it at first. The priv-i-We of vot-ine 

• i 1 • 1 r 1 

with the pa-tn-ots was ta-ken from them at first, 
but giv-en back la-ter on. The more hot head-ed- 
a-mong the cit-i-zens were for driv-ing them out 







1 ' 'Vtewfr 



Eh'A 






Jrf. 



142 



ON THE MO-HAWK. 



Peace and Growth. i 43 

of the State al-togeth-er. But cool-er coun-sel pre- 
vailed. 

New York was the fifth State in pop-u-la-tion at 
this time. The pop-u-la-tion of the whole State was 
2 3 3*896. Vir-gin-ia had more than twice that num- 
ber, while Penn-syl-va-ni-a, North Car-o-li-na, and 
Mass-a-chu-setts all had more than that ; but ow-ing 
to the nat-ur-al claims of the State, and to the wise 
course fol-lowed by her lead-ing men, she soon 
sprung to the first rank, and has kept it ev-er since. 

With a view to re-plac-ing the men she had lost 
in the eight years' war, New York passed a law in 
1 79 1 which led to a great waste of her rich lands. 
The " Com-mis-sion-ers" (men who had pow-er to 
sell the State lands) were giv-en per-mis-sion to sell 
them for just what they could get. In this way vast 
tracts of the best lands in the State were sold for 
eight pence an a-cre. 

The mid-die and west-ern parts of the State 
re-ceived the great-est rush of new set-tiers. Up to 
that time set-tiers had clung close to the coast. The 
whole State of New York be-yond Sche-nec-ta-dy 
still fur-nished orood hunt-in^ - for the sav-ae-es. The 
fur trade, which since the days of Hen-ry Hud-son 
had been of great val-ue to the State of New York, 
was car-ried on in a new way af-ter the war, the furs 
be-ing packed like oth-er sorts of freight, and ta-ken 



144 



. \ w ) ork. 



to Buf-fa-lo, where the Brit-ish, in spite of the trea-ty 
of peace, bought them. This drew one great source 
of wealth a-way from Al-ba-ny, and forced her peo- 
ple to turn to oth-er ways oi mak-ing mon-ey. Al- 
ba-ny soon built up a great trade in grain. 

State roads were cut, and he-tore man-y more 
years there was a reg-u-lar post road from Al-ba-ny 




FUL-TON S STEAM-BOAT, 



to New York. But trav-el on the best of these 
State roads was slow and tire-some. The coach-es 
were heav-w and it took per-haps as man-y days 
then, as it does hours now, to go ei-ther to Phil-a- 
del-phia or to Bos-ton from New York. 

It was not much bet-ter on the wa-ter. There 



Peace and Growth. 145 

were no great steam-ships in those days to whisk 
peo-ple a-cross the seas in eight or ten clays. On 
the coasts there were on-ly slow sail-boats, which 
were at the mer-cy of ev-er-y wind that blew. On 
the riv-ers there were ug-ly flat-boats, and few 
bridg-es. It was not un-til the year 1807, when 
Rob-ert Ful-ton's great dis-cov-er-y of the fact that 
steam could be made use of to turn the wheels 
of a boat, that mat-ters in this re-spect changed 
much. 

This first steam-boat was called the " Cler-mont," 
and it took her thir-ty-two hours to make the trip of 
one hun-dred and fif-ty miles, from New York to 
Al-ba-ny. This queer ht-tle craft, how-ev-er, gave 
the set-tiers on riv-er banks ad-van-tag-es they had 
nev-er thought of pos-sess-ing, and in that way helped 
to fill up the coun-try. 

Eng-land, you will re-mem-ber, had not want-ed 
her Col-o-nies to man-u-fact-ure their own o-oods. 
She had done all that she could, in fact, to keep 
them from it. But now home in-dus-try of all sorts 
was en-cour-aged and fos-tered by the Gov-ern-ment 
of the U-mt-ecl States. New York took the lead in 
this ac-tiv-i-ty. I-ron was worked m-to shape from 
the ore found in the State ; lin-en and cot-ton 
looms were set a-whir-ring; pa-per mills were put 
up ; glass was made ; in short, an-y-bod-y who 



146 New York. 

could get mon-ey or con-tro] la-bor, nut it in-to some 
sort of fac-to-ry. • 

More schools and col-leg-es were add-ed to the 
list of those start-ed by the Dutch and Eng-lish in 
co-lo-ni-al days. One of Gov-er-nor Clin-ton's first 
acts was to lay a school tax on the peo-ple. A-mong 
oth-er ways of rais-ing mon-ey for these schools, we 
read that a lot-ter-y was start-ed, to raise $100,000 
for the pur-pose. 

There were not so man-v news-pa-pers in those 
days. But those that did ex-ist were well <>ot-ten 
up, and bet-ter read than now. A-mong the New 
York pa-pers was one called the Ad-ver-tis-er, ed- 
lt-ed by" No-ah \\ eb-ster, the man who got up the 
big dic-tion-a-ry. 

Of course, the com-merce of the State had been 
the first thing to suf-fer from the war. It sprung 
now in-to more vig-or-ous life than ev-er. So fast 
did it grow, that we are told six hun-dred and 
eigh-ty-three for-eign ships, and one thou-sand three 
hun-dred and eigh-ty-one coast-ing ves-sels came in-to 
the port of New \ ork in the year 1 793. 

One old troub-le came to the front as soon as 
men had time to turn their thoughts to it. It was 
tin- ques-tion of bound-a-ry lines. The King had 
fixed the west-ern bound-a-ry to six of the Col-o-nies, 
but New York was not one of the six. When the 



Peace and Growth. 147 

call for Gov-ern-mcnt lands was made on the va-ri- 
ous States, New York gave up her west-ern claims 
to the U-nit-ed States, and Con-gress urged the oth-er 
States to fol-low her good ex-am-ple. But the dis- 
pute a-bout her east-ern bound-a-ry still went on. 
This troub-le was at last closed by an act of leg-is- 
la-ture, which formed the land in dis-pute in-to a 
sep-a-rate State, by the name of Ver-mont. 

By this a-gree-ment, Ver-mont, on the pay-ment 
of $30,000 to the State of New York was freed for- 
ev-er from her con-trol. The new State was re-cocr- 
nized by Con-gress, and ta-ken in-to the sis-ter-hood 
of States in i 791. 

New York was the seat of Gov-ern-ment un-til 
1 790, when Phil-a-del-phi-a was cho-sen as the cap- 
i-tal of the na-tion for ten years. From there it was 
moved to Wash-ing-ton Ci-ty, where it has ev-er 
since re-mained. 

New York's first Gov-er-nor (Clin-ton) held 
of-fice for eigh-teen years. In that time the 
State's peace-ful growth was sure and stead-y. It 
was in Gov-er-nor Lew-is's time that an act was 
passed look-ing to the im-prove-ment of the in-land 
trav-el. 

It was thought that to join the wa-ters of the 
Hud-son Riv-er with those of the great lakes by a 
ca-nal would be the best way to de-vel-op the wealth 



The War of 1812. 149 

of the State. It was a great i-de-a, but it was al-so a 
great task. 

Hav-ing tried in vain to get the Gov-ern-ment to 
take the work in hand, the State re-solved to build 
this huge ca-nal with her own funds and for her own 
use. But be-fore it could be be-gun fresh troub-le 
with Great Brit-ain came to swal-low up all oth-er 
in-ter-ests. 

This ca-nal, the E-rie Ca-nal, was fi-nal-ly built 
at an im-mense cost, but New r York reaped still 
great-er ben-e-fits from it. It was be-gun by Act of 
Leg-is-la-ture in 1817, and fin-ished in 1825 with 
great re-joic-ings. It is three hun-dred and six-ty- 
three miles long. 

Some writ-ers date New York's great-ness from 
the o-pen-ing of the E-rie Ca-nal. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE WAR OF 1812. 

As we look back to it now, it does seem as if 
the sec-ond war that A-mei i-ca had with Great 
Brit-ain was a war which might just as well as not 
been ward-ed off for all the rain this coun-trv got 
from it. Though grow-ing ver-y fast, the States 



150 New York. 

wire as yet like weak chil-dren be-side such na-tions 
as the French and Brit-ish, out of whose quar-rel 
this war grew. 

The war be-tween Great Bnt-am and France 
had been going on for quite a while when Great 
Brit-ain passed an act which touched A-mer-i-cas 
trade ver-y close-ly. 

This act for-bade an-v ship sail-ing in-to French 
ports to trade with that coun-try, on fear of be-ing 
seized by the Brit-ish men-of-war. France said two 
could play at that game, so she for-bade an-v ship to 
sail in-to Brit-ish ports on fear of be-ing seized by 
French men-of-war, which was a blow at A-mer-i-can 
com-merce. 

This long stand-ing feud be-tween France and 
Eng-land had at first been a help to A-mer-i-can 
com-merce. It had thrown the car-ry-ing of stuff 
from one for-eign port to an-oth-er in-to the hands of 
A-mer-i-can ship-own-ers. 

More ships and more men were need-ed as this 
trade on the high seas grew larg-er and larg-er. 
A-mer-i-can cap-tains did not ob-ject to tak-ing de- 
sert-ers from the Brit-ish na-vy to make up their 
crews. 

Out of this grew the " right of search" which was 
one of the chief caus-es ol the li-nal break be-tween 
the two coun-tries. The right of search gave Brit- 



The II 'ar of 18 12. 151 

ish of-fi-cers the right to search A-mer-i-can ships for 
men who had run a-way from their own. Of course 
such a right as this put in-to the hands of men who 
did not care ver-y much for the feel-ings of the ship's 
cap-tain or crew gave rise to no end of mis-chief and 
mis-takes. 

The Brit-ish of-fi-cers as of-ten as not would take 
A-mer-i-cans and force them in-to ser-vice in the 
Eng-lish na-vy. Some claim that be-fore the war 
end-ed thou-sands of A-mer-i-can-born sail-ors were 
thus treat-ed. Out of this right of search a fight 
sprung be-tween the Brit-ish ship " Leop-ard " and 
the A-mer-i-can ship "Ches-a-peake," which add-ed 
fu-el to the flames. 

A-mer-i-ca met the em-bar-go laid by France and 
Great Brit-ain by say-ing that no ships should leave 
her own ports on this side, which was a sore tri-al to 
the mer-chant ships thus forced to lay a-side their 
work and their mon-ey mak-ing. 

On the 1 8th of June, 1812, the bit-ter feel-ing 
a-gainst Great Brit-ain which had grown out of all 
this reached the point of an o-pen dec-la-ra-tion of 
war. The A-mer-i-cans charged up man-y wrongs 
a-gainst their old en-e-my. 

At this time the coun-try was in no way read-y 
for a con-test with a great na-val pow-er. The 
Brit-ish na-vy claimed one thou-sand ships, while 



152 New York. 

(John-ston says), "the A-mer-i-can na-vy num-bcred 
twelve, none of them of a .large size, with a num- 
ber of cheap, small, and use-less ves-sels called gun- 
boats." 

The em-bar-go act, by which all ships had been 
for-bid-den to leave A-mer-i-can ports, had dealt a 
hard blow at New York, which, by right of her 
im-por-tance and po-si-tion, was doomed to get the 
full force of ev-er-y blow struck at the erow-ing 
States. Noth-ing would have been eas-i-er for New 
York ship-pers than to si lp out to sea by way of 
Lake Cham-plain and the St. Law-rence Riv-er; but 
no at-tempt to e-vade the law, hurt-ful and un-wise as 
it seemed to be, was made by them. 

A few of the states-men of New York were in 
fa-vor of this act. They said it hurt Great Brit-ain 
quite as much as it did A-mer-i-ca, and that as long 
as the ports were all closed it would ward off the 
war for which the coun-try was not read-y, and from 
which, when it did come, New York would suf-fer 
more than an-y oth-er State. 

The ki war par-tv," how-ev-er, car-ried the day ; 
and when the call for troops and for ships was made, 
New \ ork was be-hind none of the States in do-ing 
her part. 

(I spoke of the "war par-tv" just now. Ev-er 
since New York had been a State, pol-i-tics had 



The War of 1812. 153 

run high. Her chief men were men who read 
and thought and act-ed, and no end of "views" of 
all sorts, a-bout how the new gov-ern-ment was to he 
made to work well, of course came up. It would 
on-ly con-fuse you to try to tell you much a-bout 
these par-ties. The two most prom-i-nent ones were 
the Fed-er-al par-ty and the Re-pub-li-can par-ty. 
The Fed-er-als want-ed the Gov-ern-ment at Wash- 
ing-ton to hold the larg-est share of pow-er. The 
Re-pub-li-cans want-ed the State Gov-ern-ments to 
have the most pow-er. Both said they want-ed 
what was best for the whole coun-try, but both, just 
as they do to-day, thought their own way was the 
on-ly good way.) 

James Mad-i-son was Pres-i-dent of the U-nit-ed 
States when this sec-ond war with Great Brit-ain 
broke out. Mr. Mad-i-son was a good and pure 
man, but too slow and tim-id to suit the times. 

The war men tried to put a New York-er, in 
whose en-er-gy and pluck they had full faith, in-to 
that im-por-tant po-si-tion, but failed to e-lect him. 
I mean Mr. De Witt Clin-ton. No man ev-er 
made a strong-er mark on his own times. 

Mr. Clin-ton was may-or of the Ci-ty of New 
York clur-ing the en-tire war. He was at first op- 
posed to the em-bar-go act, which would shut up the 
ships in the har-bor of New York, but came to look 



'54 



New York. 



at it from a new stand-point, and set to work with a 
will to sus-tain the Gov-en>ment. 




REM r [•-] 



W hen the war broke out, of course ev-cr-v-bod-y 
thought that the Brit-ish would once more sail in-to 



The War of 1812. 155 

the bay, and try to oc-cu-py their old snug quar-ters 
in New York Ci-ty. Ev-er-y ef-fort was bent 
to-wards pre-vent-ing this. 

Mil-i-ta-ry com-pa-nies were formed, and set to 
drill-ing right off. Rich men gave free-ly from 
their own purs-es funds to car-ry on the war. Men 
of all a£-es and all call-ings and trades worked side 
by side on the de-fenc-es of the ci-ty. 

With-in four months af-ter the war be-gan New 
York a-lone had fit-ted out and sent to sea from her 
port, twen-ty-six pri-va-teers, with two hun-dred and 
twelve guns, and two thou-sand two hun-dred and 
thir-ty-nine men. 

As ear-ly as 1808, there had been sev-er-al forts 
e-rect-ed in the har-bor of New York. Gov-er-nor's 
Isl-and was sur-round-ed by a wall of ma-son-ry, and 
was pret-ty well fixed in oth-er ways for an at-tack. 
Oth-er isl-ands in the bay were al-so for-ti-fied. 

Af-ter all though, as things turned out, New 
York was not called on to meet the first shock of 
bat-tie. The seat of war was prin-ci-pal-ly on the 
line which di-vides Can-a-da from the U-nit-ed 
States. This por-tion of our coun-try was scarce-ly 
more than a wil-der-ness at that time, 

"There was not a town of an-y size in the whole 
west-ern half of the State of New York, or on the 
lake shore ; and the maps of the time do not show 



i«?6 



.\ 'ew ) ork. 



such plac-es as Buf-fa-lo, Roch-es-ter, or Syr-a-cuse, 
e-ven as vil-lag-es." This de-scrip-tion of Mr. 
John-ston's will show you how far A-mer-i-can troops 




CAR-RY-ING FOOD TO THE TROOPS. 



had to march to meet the foe, and his ac-count of the 
state of the roads, serves still more to show how 



The War of 1812. 



0/ 



great the task was; "there were hard-ly an-y pass- 
a-ble roads here or north and west of the O-hi-o Riv- 
er. Food for the troops was car-ried to them with 
great dif-fi-cul-ty, and at a cost some-times, of five or 
six times its val-ue." 

The first plan of the Brit-ish in this war was to 
"dis-tress the coast all the way from Maine to New 
Or-le-ans ; to in-vade New York State by way of the 
lakes in the North, and to strike at New York Ci-ty 
by way of the sea.'' 

The plan of the A-mer-i-can Gen-er-als was to 
in-vade Can-a-da, and in this way do the fight-ing 
on Brit-ish ground. Wil-liam Hull, Gov-er-nor of 
Mich-i-gan Ter-n-to-ry (not yet a State), was or-dered 
to cross the riv-er and car-ry the war in-to Can-a-da 
at once. He did so, but turned back and shut him- 
self up in De-troit as soon as the Brit-ish troops, 
un-der Gen-er-al Brock, came out to op-pose him. 
Brock threat-ened to give his In-dian troops full 
free-dom to kill if De-troit was not giv-en up. Hull 
gave up the place with-out strik-ing a blow, which 
gave the Brit-ish con-trol of all the coun-try north- 
west of the O-hi-o. 

The A-mer-i-can land forc-es were ei-ther bad-ly 
han-dled or ver-y un-luck-y in the North at this time. 
Ear-ly in 1813 Gen-er-al Dear-born went o-ver in-to 
To-ron-to from Sack-ett's Har-bor, took it, and burned 



158 New York. 

the sup-plies ; re-turned to the A-mer-i-can side, 
near Lew-is-ton, and made an-oth-er dash in-to Can- 
a-da, hut his troops were bad-ly heat-en in two small 
en-count-ers. 

The A-mer-i-cans had made the mis-take of put- 
ting their fore-es un-der men who had been good 
sol-diers in the Rev-o-lu-tion-a-ry \\ ar, hut young-er 
and fresh-er men had to be put in-to their place and 
the ar-my drill had to be im-proved, and oth-er 
chang-es made be-fore the A-mer-i-can sol-diers got 
back the good name they had near-ly lost through 
poor lead-ers. 

The bat-ties of Chip-pe-wa, Lun-dy's Lane, and 
Fort K-ne, all showed of what good stuff the new 
Gen-er-als, Brown, Win-field Scott, and Rip-ley 
were made, but came too late to have much el-fect 
on the war. These vic-to-nes gave great de-light to 
the coun-try at large. 

The most bnll-iant fight-ing of the war of 1812, 
how-cv-er, was done on the wa-ter, which was where 
the A-mer-i-cans at first had felt weak-est. The 
na-val vic-to-ries were man-y and re-mark-a-ble. 
They a-roused the most in-tense ex-cite-ment on both 
sides of the o-cean. For twen-ty years Great Brit- 
am had been mis-tress of the seas ; and yet in six 
months, A-mer-i-ca's fee-ble na-val force had ta-ken 
five of her ships, and had not lost a sin-gle bat-tie 




GEN-ER-AL BROWN'S SCOUTS NEAR-ING FORT E-RIE. 



159 



160 New York. 

by sea. The na-val of-fi-cers of A-mer-i-ca were 
cov-ered with glo-ry, and the whole coun-try ex- 
pressed the ut-most con-fi-dence in them. 

There were fif-teen " ship-du-els" as some one 
called them dur-ing this war, three on-ly of which 
were lost by the A-mer-i-cans. One of the lost bat- 
ties took place in 1815, when one of the larg-est 
ships in the A-mer-i-can na-vy, the " Pres-i-dent." 
tried to get to sea from Xew York. She was ta-ken 
by a Brit-ish fleet off Long Isl-and. 

In 1 S 1 4. Xew York Ci-ty was lit-tle bet-ter than 
one big camp. The Gov-er-nor of the State, Gov- 
er-nor Tomp-kins, had put near-ly for-ty thou-sand 
men m-to the field to de-fend this ci-ty, Sack-ett's 
Har-bor, Buf-ia-lo, and oth-er threat-ened points. 

Great Brit-ain had sent o-ver a large force of 
fresh troops to in-vade north-ern New York, pret-ty 
much on the same line Bur-goyne had failed on. 
By the way of Lake Cham-plain the Brit-ish would 
force then- way down the Hud-son and in-to the 
ci-ty. 

But there was an A-mer-i-can fleet on this lake 
un-der Com-mo-dore Mac-don-ough, which set-tied 
the fate of this ex-pe-di-tion in the har-bor of Pitts- 
burgh, af-ter a two hours' fight, in which the Brit-ish 
were bad-ly heat-en. 

At the oth-er end of the line ru-mors of at-tack 



The J I r ar of \§\2. 1 6 1 

on the Ci-ty of New York kept the peo-ple wide 
a-wake and on the a-lert. 

De Witt Clin-ton, the may-or, stirred the peo-ple 
up to the high-est pitch of zeal. Trades-men, man- 
u-fact-ur-ers, schol-ars, teach-ers, 
and law-yers all took up their 
pick-ax-es and shov-els, and 
worked night and day to make 
read-y for the foe who nev-er 
came. 

Held at bay. by 
land, and bad-ly crip- 
pled at sea by the 
na-vy of the U-nit-ed 
States, the tide of 
b a t - 1 1 e orad-u-al-lv 
ebbed, un-til the 
fi-nal blows were 
struck in the south- 
west, where, in point 
of fact, the best fight- 
ing of the War of 
1 8 1 2 was done. 

Gen-er-al An-drew Jack-son, in one oi the most 
brill-iant and un-e-ven bat-ties on record, struck the 
last blow of this war at New Or-le-ans on the 8th of 
Jan-u-a-ry, 1814. In this bat-tie the Brit-ish were 




» g 






FOR-TI-FY-ING. 



1 62 New York. 

once more de-feat-ed, and their lead-er, Gen-er-al 

Pack-en-ham, slam. 

The war was real-ly over, so far as a trea-ty of 
peace went, be-fore this bat-tie was fought. But 
good news could not be flashed a-cross the world 
then quite as tast as it can now. 

By this time Great Brit-ain was heart-i-ly sick of 

a war she had gained noth-ing by, and Pres-i-dent 

i • 1 

Mad-i-son sent five men o-ver to Ghent, a ht-tle 
town in Bel-gi-um, to meet her Com-mis-sion-ers and 
ar-range for peace. 

The news of this treat-y (which, by the way, left 
things, so far as the right of search-ing A-mer-i-can 
ves-sels went, just where they had been be-fore) 
reached New York a week ai-ter the bat-tie of New 
Or-le-ans had been fought, and the coun-try went 
went al-most wild for joy. 

Com-merce on the seas had been brok-en up. 
There was ht-tle or no bus-i-ness of an-y kind do-ing. 
Farm-ers had not been a-ble to sell their crops. 
The price of all things had gone up, and there was 
no mon-ey to buy with at that. 



Fresh Growth. 163 



CHAPTER XIII. 

FRESH GROWTH. 

Once more the men of New York found time to 
turn their thoughts on plans for im-prov-ing the 
roads and the wa-ter ways which have had so much 
to do with the swift growth and vast wealth of the 
State. 

I have al-read-y said a few words a-bout the E-ne 
ca-nal which is one of the great-est piec-es of work 
of its sort, that the world has ev-er seen. 

Not e-ven the men who had done most to have 
it dug, and were the^ most sure of its suc-cess, could 
form an-y i-de-a of how great that suc-cess was to be. 

Men be-gan at once to flock to the rich lands 
thus made ea-sy of ac-cess. Now that they could 
get things to mar-ket by way of the ca-nal, farm-ers 
raised ev-er-y-thing in lm-mense quan-ti-ties. The 
price of land a-long the wa-ter ways went up, up, up, 
while fac-to-ries of all sorts sprung up where wa-ter 
pow-er was to be found. 

For years a trip on the ca-nal boats was looked 
up-on as a pleas-ure trip. The boats were nice-ly 
fit-ted up, and went at the rate of some five or six 



164 



New York. 



miles an hour — as fast, that is, as three or four hors-es, 
driv-en tan-clem a-long the tow-path, could take them. 
There was no hard, swift rush-ing from point to point 
in those clays. In the day time one glid-ed slow-ly 
be-tween banks beau-ti-tul with na-ture's own beau-ty, 




ON Jill 1 A-NAL. 



and at night, in the snug cab-in, where berths were 
cur-tained off, as they are now in the " sleep-ers," 

on the rail-road cars, one could sleep as qui-et-ly as 
in bed at home. 



Fresh Growth. 165 



There are man-y oth-er im-por-tant ca-nals in this 
State. In point of size and cost the Cham-plain 
and the Os-we-go ca-nals rank next to the E-rie. 
New York is main-ly in-debt-ed to De Witt Clin- 
ton for this great work. But w T e must now pass on 
to oth-er modes of trav-el. 

As the State be-gan to fill up with set-tiers from 
all parts of the globe, and her trade grew too great 
for the slow modes of get-ting a-bout on the in-land 
streams, at-ten-tion was turned to-wards se-cur-ing 
bet-ter modes. 

Rob-ert Ful-ton's "Cler-mont" which had made 
the trip from New York to Al-ba-ny at the rate of 
five miles an hour in 1807 had been the start-ing 
point of the new e-ra in wa-ter trav-el, but it was a 
long time be-fore the coun-try be-gan to reap the full 
ben-e-fit of it. 

Un-til 1 8 10 barg-es with long oars, or horse-boats 
with a wheel in the cen-tre, which was turned by 
horse pow-er, were the fer-ry boats on all the streams. 
It was a na-tive of New York Ci-ty, Col-o-nel John 
Ste-vens, who put a steam fer-ry in place of those 
slow boats. 

In 181 1 he took some friends of his from New 
York to Ho-bo-ken on the first steam fer-ry boat 
that was ev-er used in an-y part of the world. He 
was a pow-er- ful ri-val to Ful-ton. 



1 66 



New -York. 



While Ful -ton was not the first man to think of 
ap-ply-ing~ steam to sueh us-es (\\ att's steam en-gine 




) 

FUL-TON 5HOW-ING HI- MOD-EL. 



had been known of for years), nor yet the first man 
to try to move a boat by steam, one John Fitch 



Fresh Growth. 167 

hav-ing made the ver-y first tri-al as far back as 
1793, he was more in ear-nest o-ver this great i-de-a 
than an-y one else, and took the lead in mak-ing it 
known to all the rest of the world. 

In point of fact he gave up his life to it. He 
ex-posed him-self in an o-pen boat, in i-cy weath-er, 
on the Hud-son, while mak-ing some of his ex-per-i- 
ments with steam, which led to his death. 

The first rail-road that was built in the State was 
sev-en-teen miles long, and ex-tend-ed from Al-ba-ny 
to Sche-nec-ta-dy. It was o-pened in 1831. Af-ter 
the o-pen-ing of that first short line they be-gan to 
spread like a huge cob-web all o-ver the State, 
un-til now the State has four great trunk lines, and 
branch-es too man-y to count. 

You have not for-got-ten, that as soon as the 
State of New York threw off King George's yoke, 
its men called a State con-ven-tion to form a set of 
laws of their own, by which things might be kept in 
some sort of shape while the war for in-de-pen-dence 
was go-ing on. 

Their first piece of work must have been pret-tv 
well done by those new law-mak-ers as it was found 
good e-nough for for-ty-four years. 

In 1 82 1 this State con-sti-tu-tion was gone all 
o-ver, and made to suit the new needs of the pop-u- 
la-tion which had grown so fast. 










Pif 



tkf 



168 



CHRIST-MAS EVE IN THE OLD-EN TIMES. 



Fresh Growth. 169 

It gave to ev-er-y white man from his twen-ty-first 
year, the right to vote ; gave to ev-er-y-bod-y free-dom 
to wor-ship God in the way that seemed best to him- 
self; pro-vid-ed fair tri-al for him by a ju-ry in case 
he got in-to troub-le ; made laws to pro-tect his prop- 
er-ty, and gave the press all the hb-er-ty it need-ed. 

To con-coct a set of laws which should hold 
un-der firm and peace-ful con-trol a pop-u-la-tion 
made up, as that of New York was, of em-i-grants 
from Hol-land, Great Brit-ain, France, and Ger- 
man-y, was no slight task, and it took bright minds 
and stout hearts to run the new ma-chin-er-v of the 
State gov-ern-ments in those ear-ly days. 

The State took charge of the ed-u-ca-tion of its 
youth as far back as 1795, and in 181 2 an act was 
passed in aid of a reg-u-lar school sys-tem. This 
act, of course, did not stand just as it does to-day, 
but, af-ter man-y chang-es, it be-came a mod-el of 
its sort : The com-mon schools are free to all from 
five to twen-ty-one years of age, and ev-er-y child, 
be-tween the a<^-es of ei^ht and four-teen must £0 to 
school at least four-teen weeks of each year if not 
pre-vent-ed by sick-ness or men-tal in-ca-pac-i-ty. 

New York out-ranks ev-er-y State of the Un-ion 
in the num-ber of its man-u-fac-to-ries and the vast 
wealth in-vest-ed in them. They are to be found in 
all parts of the State, and they in-clude al-most 



1 70 



New York. 



ev-er-y-thing you can think of. I-ron, steel, wool, 

silk, leath-er, and wood, are all worked up from the 

crude stuff in-to things of beau-ty and use-ful-ness. 
It was a-bout this time in the his-to-rv of this 

whole coun-try that the great ques-tion of slav-er-y 

be-gan to be brought 
for-ward on all occa- 
sions, un-til it grew to 
be the ques-tion of the 
times. 

By the trea-ty of 
Ghent both na-tions 
had a-greed to try to 
sup-press the slave 
trade. The peo-ple of 
N ew Y o rk were in 
fa-vor of let-ting slav- 
er-y a-lone in the States 
where it al-read-y ex- 
lst-ed, but not of let- 
ting slaves be ta-ken 
in-to an-y new State. 
Nor would they a-gree 

to send slaves back to mas-ters from whom they had 

fled. 

No oth-er State had as man-y ties bind-ing it to 

the South as New York had; and it took some firm- 




Fresh Growth. i 7 1 

ness for the peo-ple to de-clare pos-i-tive-ly as they 
did, af-ter 1854, at the polls, through the press, 
and from their pul-pits, that all the new States must 
be free. But the State took this bold step, which, 
of course, made it prob-a-ble that she would lose the 
friend-ship and the rich trade of the South, with-out 
flinch-ing; and when the time came to sus-tain her 
po-si-tion in the field she was found read-y. 

The old Dutch pa-troon sys-tem by which vast 
tracts of land were put in-to the hands of a few men, 
and the large grants by which the roy-a! Gov-er-nors 
took up more of the best lands in the State, gave rise 
to much trou-ble in the mat-ter of rents and ti-tles to 
land. 

The laree land own-ers and the heirs of the old 
pa-troons in this way held the small farm-ers in their 
grasp. Ten-ants found that they had no rights of 
their own. The land-lord could e-ven claim the 
house built by his ten-ant's la-bor. The lands which 
they had ta-ken on long leas-es bound them to a sort 
of feu-dal ser-vice, which free-born A-mer-i-cans would 
not hear to. In some cas-es, the heirs of a pa-troon 
would go so far as to make at-tempts to col-lect 
ar-rears of rent and seize farm prod-ucts to se-cure 
them. 

So hot grew the feel-ing of re-sis-tance to such acts 
that a band of the out-raeed rent-ers of these lands 



172 



New York. 



rose in a mob and killed one man in Rens-sa-laer 
Coun-ty. 

The troub-le at last found its way in-to the courts, 
and as soon as the ar-ro-gant claims of the land-lords 
were set a-side, the cur-rent of ag-ri-cult-ur-al life ran 
smooth-ly once more. The large tracts have been 
cut up in-to small farms, and peace-ful thrift is the 
nat-ur-al re-sult of se-cure ti-tles. 

The ci-ties and towns of New York have multi- 
plied with mag-i-cal swift-ness, but the north -east-ern 
part of the State can still boast of its fine for-ests that 
re-tain their first beau-tv. In the re-gion of the 
Ad-i-ron-dacks are to be found pine, fir, and pop-lar 
— in oth-er parts of the State, oak, ma-ple, elm, etc. 

Dur-ing the pe-ri-od of time be-tween the war of 
1 8 1 2 and the war for the Un-ion, of which I will 
tell you in the next chap-ter, the growth of the State 
was stead-y in point of num-bers. 

In i860 there was a pop-u-la-tion of 3,880,735 
scat-tered o-ver its a-re-a of 47,620 square miles. 
New York State is 412 miles long (from east to 
wist) and 311 miles wide. When I speak of the 
State, I mean Man-hat-tan Isl-and (which is ta-ken 
up by New York Ci-ty), Stat-en Isl-and, Long 
Isl-and, and a num-ber of small-er ones. 



The Late War. j - 3 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LATE WAR. 

The late war, as no doubt ev-er-y child who 
reads this book has al-read-y been told more than 
once, had for its chief re-sult the free-ing of the 
slaves in the Soiith-ern States of the Un-ion. 

Slaves had been owned in the North be-fore 
they found their way South, and per-haps would 
have been held there just as long if it had not been 
that the Af-ri-can race can on-ly thrive and la-bor in 
a mild cli-mate. 

The warm cli-mate of the South-ern States and 
the lines of work there pur-sued led to the u-ni-ver- 
sal use of slave la-bor long af-ter the North had 
freed all of hers. 

As far back as the days of Wash-ing-ton and 
Jef-fer-son> both of whom owned slaves, wise men 
knew and said that some day or oth-er slav-er-y 
would cease to ex-ist in an-y part of the coun-try ; 
but their hope was to see it die out nat-ur-al-ly and 
peace-ful-ly. 

In 1808 it was made il-le-gal to bring an-y more 
slaves in-to the coun-try in slave ships. But the 



i 74 New ) ork. 

South was by that time the own-er of large num-bers 
which in-creased ver-y fast in that mild cli-mate. 

From the ver-y out-set these slaves were the 
source of dis-cord and bit-ter feel-ing" be-tween the 
North and the South, and led to hot words and high 
hand-ed acts, when-ev-er the mat-ter came up lor 
dis-cus-sion. 

Slav-er-y came in for the first sharp at-tack as 
far back as 1831, when Wil-liam Lloyd Gar-ri-son, a 
Bos-ton news-pa-per man, called for the free-ing of 
the slaves at once. 

Those who joined in this has-ty hue and cry 
a-gainst the South were called Ab-o-li-tion-ists, and, 
like all re-form-ers whose zeal sweeps them a-way, 
they did more harm than good at first. 

The way the men of the South looked at it was 
that the slaves which had been hand-ed down from 
fa-ther to son, in their midst, from the ear-ly days of 
the coun-trv, and who, take it all in all, were hap-py 
and well cared lor, were theirs to take wher-ev-er it 
suit-ed them to take them. The main point which 
ar-rayed the two sec-tions a-gainst each oth-er was 
wheth-er the South should or should not be per- 
mit-ted to take its slaves in-to an-)' of the new States. 
And the dis-pute o-ver this point last-ed for years. 

John Brown's raid in-to the South, where he 
out arms in-to the hands of Vir-srin-ia slaves and 



The Late II ar. 



175 



stirred them up to mur-der white men and women, 
al-though the act of a fa-nat-ic, did more to in- 
flame the South than ev-er-y-thing that had gone 
be-fore. 

M uch that 
was not just, nor 
true, nor kind, 
was said on both 
sides ; and when 
L 1 n - c o 1 n was 
e-lect-ed Presi- 
dent on a plat- 
form which said 
plain-ly that it 
was the rioht and 
d u - 1 y of Con- 
gress to for-bid 
slaves be-ino- ta- 
ken in-to an-v of 
the new States, 
the smould-er-ino- 








■^"1 



fire burst in-to an 
o-pen blaze. 

South Car-o- 
li-na called a 
State con-ven-tion, which de-clared the State had the 
ri^ht to oro out of the Un-ion, and it did so. The 



Q^/s!j}£~^<<r^Z>'- 



1 76 New York. 

oth-er South-ern States fol-lowed her ex-am-ple, one 
by one. 

Ear-ly in 1 86 1 South Car-o-li-na be-gan to pre- 
pare for the war which all now saw must come. 
Her troops at-tacked Fort Sum-ter and took it 
A-pril 13th. The fall of Fort Sum-ter cre-at-ed as 
much ex-cite-ment all o-ver the land as the bat-tie of 
Lex-ing-ton had at the be-gin-ning of the Rev-o-lu- 
tion. Fort Sum-ter is in the har-bor of Charles-ton, 
South Car-o-li-na. 

\\ hen Fort Sum-ter fell, Pres-i-dent Lin-coln 
made a call for sev-en-ty-five thou-sand men, with 
which to de-fend the Un-ion. They were on-lv 
asked to en-list for three months at first. 

In an-swer to this call for troops, New York sent 
thir-teen thou-sand men, said she would give 
$3,000,000 to help pay the ex-pens-es of the war, and 
made a fresh call of her own for thir-ty thou-sand 
men, to en-list for two years, in-stead of for the three 
months which the Pres-i-dent had thought would 
be long e-nough for the Un-ion men to quell the 
troub-le. Near-ly one out of ev-er-v six men in the 
State who were a-ble to car-rv arms was en-rolled 
for a short or long term. 

In no State of the Un-ion was there more zeal 
shown in all ranks of life. Pub-lie com-pa-nies, 
banks, and rich men in pri-vate life, all made of-fers 



1 78 New York. 

of funds to the Gov-ern-ment. Arms were bought 
in large quan-ti-ties in Eu-rope. \\ ives got their 
hus-bands read-y to go to the war with ea-ger zeal, 
daugh-ters helped fa-thers and broth-ers oft. Old 
men and boys, rich and poor, caught the ex-cite- 
ment of the hour, and rushed to of-fer them-selves as 
sol-diers. This white heat zeal did not last long. 

The de-feat which the Un-ion forc-es met with 
at the fight of Bull Run, brought out some sharp 
news-pa-pcr cnt-i-eism. The mass of men are eas-i-ly 
swayed by such things. It had been ta-ken too 
much for grant-ed that the troops of the South, 
got-tcn to-geth-er in haste, and com-posed most-ly 
of men who had nev-er been trained to hard-ship of 
an-y sort, could be crushed by one or two hard 
blows. When it be-gan to look as if a long war was 
a-head of them, and that trade was go-ing to suf-fer 
t>reat-ly by it, the ar-dor to en-list cooled sud-den-ly. 

In the fall of 1862 it was found nec-es-sa-ry to 
be-gin to draft men m-to the ar-my. To draft sol- 
diers, means to se-lect them from the peo-ple at large 
wheth-er they want to go or not. 

This draft gave rise to one of the worst n-ots 
New York Ci-ty has ev-er seen. It is known as the 
" Draft Ri-ot," and it raged for two or three days 
with bru-tal strength. 

More than once be-fore mobs had giv-en the ci-ty 



The Late War. 1 79 

troub-le. In 1788 there had been what was called 
the " doc-tor's mob," the full sto-ry of which you can 
read in Mrs. Lamb's splen-did his-to-ry of New 
York. In the year 1834 there had been more than 
one, a-mong them the stone cut-ters' n-ot, in short, 
sev-er-al times that large class of un-ru-ly men which 
is al-ways to be found in a crowd-ed ci-ty, had ta-ken 
their stand a-gainst law and good or-der ; but for mad 
fu-ry and brute force the draft ri-ot must be put at 
the head of this dark list. 

It so fell out that the draft for sol-diers was be- 
gun on the eve of an e-lec-tion for State of-fi-cers. 
The ring-leacl-ers of the mob made use of this fact to 
de-clare that the draft was got-ten up to beat the 
Dem-o-crats by send-ing vot-ers out of the State. 
Oth-er charg-es no less false and fool-ish were 
brought a-gainst the State of-fi-cers. 

It was a time when i-dlers were man-y, when 
speech was fre-er than ev-er, and when the dis-com- 
fort and sus-pense that hung o-ver the land made 
men on-ly too read-y to lis-ten to who-so-ev-er was 
read-y to talk. The times were ripe for deeds of 
dis-or-der, and the men to do them were not hard to 
find. 

The first act of o-pen vi-o-lence was the throw-ing 
of a pav-ing stone in-to the build-ing where the men 
had to go to be draft-ed in-to the ar-my. The sound 



1 80 New York. 

of that break-ing glass was the sig-nal for the mob to 
be-gin its work. 

The ri-ot-ers rushed in-to the draft of-fice, broke 
the desks to piec-es, tore up the draft pa-pers, bad-ly 
beat one of the draft of-fi-cers, poured tur-pen-tine 
o-ver the floor, and set fire to the house. 

From this point the mob spread o-ver the whole 
town burn-ing hous-es, beat-ing of-fi-cers, rob-bing 
and kill-ing at its own wild will. \\ hole blocks 
were set on fire, and the fu-rv of the ri-ot-ers grew as 
their num-bers swelled. 

The col-ored peo-ple were the ob-jects of its 
blind-est fu-rv. Men and wo-men and chil-dren 
were beat-en wher-ev-er the\' showed them-selves ; 
and, in one case, a poor wretch who had been kicked 
to death, was hung to a tree and set fire to. 

The half-or-phan a-sy-lum for col-ored chil-dren 
on Fifth Av-e-nue was burned. (\>l-ored wait-ers 
in ho-tels had to flee for their lives. The at-tacks on 
these poor wretch-es was main-ly from the mob of 
for-eign-born ri-ot-ers, who ig-no-rant-ly re-gard-ed 
them as the chief cause of all the troub-le that had 
come up-on the land, and sought to take ven-geance 
for it. 

The ci-ty po-lice fought hard to put down this 
n-ot, but were not e-qual to it. Gov-er-nor Sey- 
mour called for help from the reg-u-lar troops, and 



The Late War 



1S1 



some ree-i-ments which were on du-ty in IVnn-syl- 
va-ni-a were sent to the aid of the cit-i-zens who 
were fight-ing to save their homes. 

The num-ber of killed and wound-ed dur-ing the 



■Jjl^UIII II I 




THE RI-OT. 



three days that this ri-ot last-ed is put at one thou- 
sand, and the loss of prop-er-ty at $2,000,000. Nor 
was this spir-it of dis-loy-al-ty con-fined to New 
York Ci-ty a-lone. Brook-lyn suf-fered by it, and in 



1 82 New York. 

Troy some deeds of dis-or-der were done, such as 
wreck-ing a news-pa-per of-fice, etc. 

It was thought by a great man-y that these 
Draft Ri-ots meant more than a disdike to be-ing 
draft-ed in-to the ar-my ; that, un-der it all, was a 
deep-laid plot to aid the South m car-ry-ing her 
point of se-ees-sion from the I n-ion. Hut if such a 
plot real-ly did ex-ist, the suc-cess of the North-ern 
arms soon wiped it out. 

The of-fi-cers and men which New York sent to 
the ar-my were not-ed for their zeal and de-vo-tion 
to the cause of the Un-ion; and their names ap- 
pear in man-y of the most strik-ing sto-ries of those 
stir-ring times. Be-fore the war closed, New York 
had sent 448,850 men in-to the field, and the first 
cen-sus ta-ken af-ter the war showed a loss in her 
pop-u-la-tion of 48,958. 



CONCLUSION. 

There is not much more to tell you a-bout the 
State of New York that does not be-long to the 
news-pa-pers of the daw 

At the close of the Civ-il War her men glad-ly 
turned once more to their homes and the tasks of 



Conclusion. 



i8< 



peace, which, in God's own good Prov-i-dence, it is 
to be hoped will not soon a-gain he in-ter-rupt-ed. 

It has al-ways been the pol-i-cy of the State to 
in-crease the w r ays of trav-el and thus help on her 
m-land trade. New 




proj-ects, look-ing to 
the im-prove-ment of 
the E-rie Ca-nal (al- 
ways an im-por-tant 
sub-ject to the peo-ple 
of this State) were set 
a-float soon af-ter the 
war. The State tax 
for schools was made 
1 arg-e r, parks we re 
laid out, the State's 
banks were mul-ti- 
phed, new rail-roads 
pro-ject-ed, and the 
vast re-sou rc-es of the 
State in all di-rec-tions 
en-cour-aged in ev-er-y 
way. 

The State, as a whole, has more va-ried man-u- 
fact-ures and a lar^-er com-merce with for-eign lands 
than an-v oth-er State in the Un-ion. 

Of her great men I have said but 1 it-tie. New 



i<S.| New York. 

York has been built up by men of too man-y sorts, 
and of too man-y dif-fer-ent na-tion-al-i-ties to have 
had an-y mark-ed lead-ers in this line But bright 
names stand on the list of her states-men, ehief 
a-mong which shines the name of Al-ex-an-der Ham- 
ilton, the fore-most states-man of his day. 

But bet-ter than a few great names are the vast 
num-ber of her stur-dy, thought-ful, pro-gres-sive 
men, who have the best m-ter-ests of the Em-pire 
State at heart, and who are year-ly add-ing to her 
wealth and great-ness by ev-er-y art known to civ-il- 
lzed man. 

The pol-i-cy of New York has been one of 
o-pen-hand-ed wel-come to the stran-ger from ev-er-y 
quar-ter of the globe ; and if this free hos-pi-tal-i-ty 
has brought her some cares and anx-i-e-ties, it has 
al-so giv-en her strength and num-bers. 

I have tried to trace the States prog-ress for you 
from the land-ing of Hen-ry Hud-son's hand-ful of 
ad-vent-ur-ous Dutch-men up to the pres-ent time of 
her splen-did pros-per-i-ty ; and no fit-ter words with 
which to close this ht-tle vol-ume come to me than 
some which I bor-row in sub-stance' from Mr. Rob- 
ert's Com-mon-wealth se-ries: 

" In the cen-tu-ry and a half past, the ten-der 
plant which those- old Gov-er-nors" (the Dutch Gov- 
er-nors) "nursed so care-ful-ly has grown to such 



1 86 New York. 

pro-por-tions that ev-en their Dutch phlegm might 
gath-er in-spi-ra-tion from the scene, and they might 
i ',ith-er cheer from the rec-ord, which shows that the 
men who have come af-ter them have, in the mam, 
met the tasks and du-ties im-posed on them with 
pru-dence, cour-age, and fore-thought.'' 



THE END. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0014 114 872 2 



